Convergence
by Annerb
Summary: Jack O'Neill is a man waiting to die, and she's the only one brave enough not to look away. Set during Stargate: The Movie. Sam/Jack
1. Convergence

Title: Convergence  
Author: Annerb  
Summary: Jack O'Neill is a man waiting to die, and she's the only one brave enough not to look away. Set during Stargate: The Movie.  
Rating/Warnings: Mature- language, sexuality, adult themes  
Categorization: AU, angst, drama, Sam/Jack  
Author's Note: Written for achairsomewhere in the sj_everyday Secret Santa 2009. The request: "fic; Sam and Jack met before the series (so AU)". Thanks to pepper_field and la_tante for the betas.

**Convergence**

Jack O'Neill is walking up to General West's office, his newly buzzed hair and claustrophobic uniform already stretching his nerves thin, when he first hears her voice.

"With all due respect, sir—."

She doesn't manage to sound all that respectful, and Jack is amused despite himself.

"That's enough, Captain," West barks, cutting across her. "I'm sorry you mistook this as a conversation, but it's not. You will report to the Pentagon immediately."

The captain doesn't take the hint. "I built this program, sir, and there is no one more qualified to make this mission successful."

"Oh, I'm quite aware how highly you think of yourself," he says and it's a damn catty remark for a damn general to be making to a captain. Of course, Jack suspects it's the obvious subtext that really stings. This has nothing to do with her qualifications. Jack's been standing out here for less than a minute and he can already pick up on it.

"I think I at least deserve an explanation," she presses.

West is sexist, not stupid. He'll never let her goad him into actually saying so out loud. "You are dismissed."

She bowls out of the office and Jack's a little surprised to see that the ballsy captain is a tall, striking blond, with brilliant blue eyes ready to laser down the next asshole in her path. Which, of course, happens to be him.

She stumbles to a stop in front of him, her eyes darting over his newly shorn hair and the slather of ribbons on his chest and he can practically see the conclusion she's reaching—black ops. Some of the fight seems to go out of her then, like she's finally connecting the dots and seeing each and every thing stacked against her. Her fight is far from fair.

She barely nods her head in what might be considered the slightest veneer of obeisance to a superior officer and smoothly steps around him. "You won't appreciate it," she says, almost as an aside.

He turns to watch her retreat down the hallway, but no matter how long he watches, she doesn't look back.

* * *

At Jack's request, they've given him quarters on base. They don't ask whether this is because he doesn't have a home to go back to, and he returns the favor by not telling them to shove it up their asses.

The few hours he's been on this base he's had uppity scientists rattling the chains, dealt with West's tight ass posturing, and stared long and hard at the reason they brought him in instead of the bright, shiny captain—the possible alien threat waiting for them on the other side, if ever anyone figures out how to open the doorway.

He hadn't expected to ever see her again, but he's heading back to his quarters when he sees her walking down the hall with her back as straight as she can possibly get it while holding two towering boxes. She's got no less than two marines walking her down the hallway, neither bothering to help her with the load, and it's the classic perp walk of the newly fired. Isn't that just adding insult to injury.

He's not sure what makes him do it, maybe because he likes her spunk, or maybe because he finally has his out and it makes things a hell of a lot more easy.

He remains standing in the middle of the hall until she's forced to stop. "Do you mind?" she asks, tacking on a nearly invisible 'sir' at the end.

"Nope," he says, plucking the topmost box from her stack. It's heavy as hell. Full of books and other geek things, he supposes.

She stares at him like he's grown a second head, but he simply walks towards the elevators, assuming she will follow him eventually. If she ever wants this box back, that is.

It's the four of them standing in the elevator watching the endless tick back towards ground level, and it might have been funny as fuck if Jack found anything remotely amusing anymore.

"West is an ass," he says somewhere near level 17.

Her eyes widen, glancing at her two escorts, like they are going to narc on him or something. What the hell does Jack care? It's not like he's got a promotion to protect, and maybe that is kind of funny after all.

"It's not like it's a secret," Jack says, nudging the marine next to him as if letting him in on the joke.

The guy does a pretty impressive job of just staring straight ahead and pretending Jack doesn't exist. He's getting used to that.

The marines look relieved to turn back at the gate, but the captain is still just staring at Jack as if waiting for the punch line.

"Where's your car?" he asks, shifting his grip on the box. He's strong, but damn this thing is heavy.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks, full of suspicion.

He shrugs. "Don't have anything better to do." And he doesn't, really. Not if you don't count arguing with nerds and burning his way through a pack of cigarettes. He picks a random direction and occupies himself trying to decide what kind of car she drives.

"This way," she says, catching up to him and nodding her head off to the left.

He's less surprised than he should be when he sees that her car is a sweet little classic thing with more speed than tonnage or efficiency. The sort of thing only a pilot or a grease monkey would love.

She tosses her box into the non-existent back seat, holding her hands out for the one he's still bear-hugging.

He's oddly reluctant to give it up, though he suspects it has a lot to do with the very valid point that she is _really_ attractive.

Oh, he knows he has a type; he's not stupid. Blond, leggy, and feisty as hell get him every damn time. So it's not surprising that he's noticed her legs, or the curves that the Air Force uniform is trying and failing spectacularly to smother.

She's beginning to stiffen up again though and that bothers him, so he hands it off to her without comment. He's not really sure what to say. Sorry you got canned? Sorry you get to put up with more crap than the rest of us just because you're a woman?

Sorry they need someone like me way more than someone like you?

He settles for shrugging and giving her a look as if to say, 'What can ya do?' He turns away then, but doesn't make it very far.

"Drinks?" she asks, sort of hurried and breathless like she knows giving the offer one more second of thought will reveal what an awesomely bad idea this is. He turns to see her, and she's leaning one hip against the car, flipping her keys around her fingers, the invitation clear.

He wonders if it has really been that long since someone was nice to her.

He gets in.

* * *

In the end, he doesn't fuck her just because she's clearly got a stick up her ass and so obviously needs a good tumble. It's not because, when he took back his rank and this hypothetical mission, his wife told him not to bother coming back, that he couldn't clearly remember what it was like to touch his wife anymore anyway. He may have expected fucking a near-stranger to be about the faded bruises on her upper arms and the slight trace of lingering swelling on her knuckles that says she didn't take that ill-fated asshole's crap lying down. It's not even about the fact that he killed his own son and she's someone who can't possibly know that, because she does, somehow. She can see it, and maybe that's really what this is about. She can see it and she's fucking him anyway.

He halfway expects one of them to get up and leave as soon as they are done, but they are both lingering, not snuggling or anything so prosaic or hypocritical, just lying there.

"I deserve to be on the mission," she says and he thinks maybe this is her reason for being here. Not trying to sleep her way into it so much as being completely out of options, needing to understand it somehow and he might just be the only one with that answer.

He looks over at her lying there in the dim light of the advancing evening and thinks that this woman on that mission would be the worst idea in the universe, and not just because he gets the sense that her brain makes her invaluable. She's bright and young and beautiful and he thinks maybe strangely vulnerable under all that armor, though he has no idea how he can know that. But the chip on her shoulder alone is enough to get people killed. Maybe get her killed.

Rolling across the bed, he settles himself on top of her, giving her a moment to protest, but not particularly surprised when she softens under him, her leg wrapping around him. She's far from shy in bed and it's just another hidden facet that makes unexpected sense.

Moving his mouth across her stomach, he digs his fingers in at her waist. "No," he says against her skin, skin so smooth and as yet untouched by sacrifice and duty. Skin he'd only ruin in the end, taking her down with his sinking ship. "You don't belong on this mission." Not the one they are sending him on, the one built on worst-case scenarios and suspicion.

She lets out a hiss of air, her hands digging into his hair not so much in punishment as encouragement. She's angry, he knows, angry that he's taking this mission away from her—a ghost who doesn't even technically exist—and there is absolutely nothing she can do about it. She takes what he gives her though, her body lifting under his—a consolation prize paid in flesh that he has no problem offering.

They sleep for a while at some point, two strangers dozing in and out on their own separate sides, not so much as an errant hand or foot breaching the distance, nothing so falsely intimate.

Some time near dawn, she invades his space, rolling up against him, her face nestling into his shoulder, and the gesture hurts in completely unexpected ways.

"You're not making the return trip," she says.

It isn't a question, and it's scary as hell, because either he's lost his edge and is that easy to read, or she's just that damn smart.

"No," he says, finally admitting what no one has been callous enough to actually say out loud, that he's a just a soldier looking for a quick out. Paid for and sanctioned by good old Uncle Sam.

She stretches one long leg across his body, shifting her weight until she's hovering over him. She's staring down at him and he doesn't want to look, to see the pity he _knows_ will be there. Her fingers grip his chin, forcing his face up.

She's staring at him with clear eyes.

And maybe that's why they are really here in this not-seedy hotel room.

Because he's a dead man walking and they both damn well know it.

When the call comes that Daniel Jackson has done the impossible—somewhere between the inevitable fall of awkward silence and the arrival of probably ill-conceived breakfast room service—she doesn't plead her case again, just gives him one long, deep kiss and doesn't say goodbye.

* * *

Abydos isn't anything like what he expects. He's prepared for bad guys and worst-case scenarios. He's even forced himself to consider the all-too-real hypothetical that Dr. Daniel Jackson is talking out of his ass and has no fucking clue how to get his men back home.

All of which basically come true.

But there's also a persistent ache of something not quite hopeless, not quite unbearable as he keeps one eye on Daniel to keep him from tripping over his own damn shoelaces, or getting fed to alien camels by Ferretti.

It's like an echo, rattling away inside him, and he can't even pinpoint when it started, just feels it bouncing unerringly from raw wound to raw wound and it hurts like fuck, but he still stands there smiling for the first time in ages when a kid with dreadlocks and a funny name dances around like a chicken.

Most of the time he's convinced he's living inside a cautionary tale.

But maybe it's the _living_ part that's unexpected.

Almost as unexpected as the way her voice lingers half a galaxy away—the woman who shouldn't mean anything.

_You won't appreciate it._

He's huddled in a dark cave on Abydos when Dr. Daniel Jackson tells him it's a fucking shame he's so ready to die.

For the first time, he thinks maybe it is.

* * *

_One month later…_

She's not hard to find. It turns out there aren't a lot of gorgeous, blond, genius captains in the Air Force.

Her hair is an even more brilliant shade of gold in the afternoon sunshine than he remembers. She's striding down the stairs in her immaculate uniform, and if he didn't have a handful of indelible memories of a night spent in a hotel room with her, he may not have believed she could be the same woman.

Only then she sees him, coming to a stop halfway down the steps.

He doesn't move, remains standing on the sidewalk, giving her ample time to simply walk past him, to firmly store that night in the past for good. He's more than aware that he may be an unwelcome intrusion—a one-night stand that was supposed to disappear into the bowels of a dead-end secret mission, not show up unannounced halfway across the country on her doorstep.

He watches her consider her options and it's not until that moment that he can acknowledge that she was one of the reasons he came back. One of the reasons an eager kid and a hapless archeologist on a desert planet on the far side of the galaxy could penetrate the wall he so carefully built around himself.

Her shoulders square, just the slightest bit and he knows she's made her decision, is ready to defend it—to him, to herself. He just doesn't expect her to actually move towards him.

She stops a careful distance away, as if not sure what to expect from him.

"You were right," he says, knowing where this starts even if the ending is still a giant fog.

"I was?" she asks.

He nods. "I probably didn't appreciate it as much as I should have."

Her eyes widen. She's curious and hungry for facts and it's proof yet again that she would have appreciated it all so much more. He pictures her there for a moment, bright and stubborn under the Abydonian sun.

"What happened?" He expects questions about the gate and what's on the other side, but for some reason he doesn't think that's what she's asking.

He shrugs, not indifferent, just still unsure himself. "I guess…I made the return trip after all."

He thinks his own wonder at this strange turn of events must still be audible in his voice because she takes another step closer, something shifting in her expression. She tilts her head slightly to one side, her brow furrowing and he gets the feeling she's trying to understand the change in him, to reconcile the man in front of her with the one from a month ago. He'd really like to know what she finds because he doesn't have a clue.

"Yes," she says, her eyes skimming across his face. "You did, didn't you?"

He holds her gaze, looking back at her, because everything is just a little overly bright, confusing, like his body is still trying to get used to actually being alive, to the thought of tomorrow actually mattering.

"I think I'm glad," she says, and he doesn't begrudge her the uncertainty.

"I'm Jack," he says, sticking his hand out. It's information she probably already learned weeks ago if she cared enough to try. But that's not what this is really about. She's smart enough to get that.

She takes his hand, her fingers firm around his. "Sam," she says.

He's more nervous than he'd bothered to be the first time he met her, but possibly that's because things actually matter now. Have consequence.

"Is there a chance…that I could buy you lunch?"

She smiles at him, surprised by the offer, or maybe a little pleased, her hand sliding up his arm as the sun glints in her hair.

"Yeah," she says. "I think there is."

.fin.


	2. Linger

Title: Linger  
Author: Annerb  
Summary: They've been doing this…whatever it is for almost a month now. Sequel to 'Convergence'  
Rating/Warnings: PG-language, innuendo  
Categorization: AU, angst, drama, Sam/Jack  
Author's Note: I, uh, may have written a sequel (or two) while I was waiting for the posting date for the secret santa over at sj_everyday. Remind me again that I need a new AU to play in like I need another hole in my head? Please? Set pre-series, but post-movie. Thanks to la_tante for the beta. All remaining errors my own.

**Linger**

Sam stretches out low over the green felt of the table, lining up her shot perfectly. She glances up at Jack right before she takes the shot, and his attention is a few feet wide of the eight ball. Noticing her regard, he gives her sheepish grin at being caught ogling her. Not apologetic, exactly, more like, 'Can you really blame a guy?'

She gives him a slow, measured smile. Not looking away from him, she takes the shot.

The eight ball sinks squarely in the corner pocket.

Jack whistles. "Best fifty bucks I've ever lost," he says.

Sam laughs, straightening up from the table. "I think I've earned myself another drink," she says, scooping up the bills. "You need another?" She waves the money. "I'm buying."

He flashes her that devil-may-care smirk of his that never fails to turn her insides warm and liquid, and how long can that possibly last? One would think it would wear off eventually, but they've been doing this…whatever it is for almost a month now, and she's no less affected.

He lifts his still half-full beer. "I'm good. Besides, I want a rematch, and God knows I'm handicapped enough as it is."

"Don't tell me you're intimidated," she teases, placing her cue stick in the rack, letting it shamelessly slide through her fingers.

"As we met, sweetheart," he says, leaning one hip against the table. "As we met."

She raises an eyebrow at him and this is so damn fun, this stupid innuendo game they are quickly turning into a fine art. "Keep calling me that and things are going to get a hell of a lot more intimidating," she promises.

He holds up his hands in mock surrender, his grin widening. "If you say so." He pauses. "Babe?"

Shaking her head, she turns back towards the bar, letting her hips swing just a little more than she usually would, knowing very well that he's watching her retreat.

The bar is fairly crowded with Friday night throngs, the snap of pool balls fighting against raised voices and poorly piped-in music. It's not exactly a dive, but close enough to feel textured and authentic, a great place to slip into anonymity. Or a semi-private party of two.

She's still probably grinning like an idiot when she finally works her way to the front of the bar, leaning against it to catch the eye of the bartender. Before she can order though, someone brushes up against her just a bit too close. "She'll have a gin and tonic with a twist."

The sound of that voice completely shatters Sam's buoyant mood, the smile melting off her face. She looks up at the bartender, pretending the other man had never spoken. "Glenlivet, neat."

The bartender nods, his eyes darting briefly past her, and she knows he's trying to judge the capacity for trouble in the little standoff developing at the bar. Sam forces a smile. She can handle this.

Her unwelcome companion's fingers tug gently at her hair, a gesture that used to be familiar but now is only unsettling. "Scotch, huh? Well, look at that, little Sammie all grown up."

His voice is slightly slurred, but nowhere near his capacity for belligerence. She knows this far too well. "I'm not interested, Jonas," she says in her frostiest tone, refusing to even turn and acknowledge him.

Undeterred, he leans into her, his fingers dropping to her forearm. Proprietary, like they still belong there. They don't. "And here I haven't even offered up anything yet."

Resigning herself to the encounter, Sam turns to face him. He's slightly disheveled and doesn't look particularly well rested and she has to ruthlessly stamp down on that old dormant part of her that wants to be concerned. He never needed to be taken care of, by her least of all.

"I don't suppose you'd just go away if I asked nicely," she says, working hard to keep her voice even.

He smiles at her, and she's surprised by how little that familiar gesture affects her. Maybe because it didn't used to be quite that feral. "Ah, Sammie," he says, his hand moving up her arm, "we both know playing hard to get was never your thing."

She pulls back, but his grip only tightens, a silent tug of war.

Jonas' attention shifts off and behind her just long enough for Sam to suspect that their conversation has not gone unnoticed by Jack. God, this had better not turn into a damn pissing contest. She can only handle so much testosterone bullshit at a time. But Jack doesn't barge in with bluster, rather stands just near enough to be intrusive while continuing to sip leisurely at his beer as if he has all the time in the world.

Jonas isn't sloshed enough not to notice. "You need something, old man?"

Sam winces. When exactly had she wandered into a made-for-TV movie?

Jack doesn't seem put off though. "Don't mind me," he says congenially. "I just wanted to get front row seats."

Sam darts a look over her shoulder at Jack. It really isn't a fair match up, and Sam suspects it wouldn't be even if Jack were drunk too. As it is, Jonas just sort of stares back at him. "What?"

Jack looks at his watch. "Well, I figure that if you don't take your hand off her in the next thirty seconds, she's going to drop you on your ass. I think it'll be pretty fun to watch."

Jonas' fingers dig into her arm, his pickled brain finally catching up.

Sam has had enough. "I think you're seriously overestimating my patience, Jack," she says, firmly removing her arm from Jonas' grasp with one swift tug. "We're done here, Jonas."

As she steps away, Jack's hand goes to the small of her back, and, instead of being patronizing, she somehow reads the fleeting touch as more of a, 'I think you're doing great, but I'm here if you need it,' which is almost as unexpected and overwhelming as Jonas' sudden appearance.

Jonas, for all his lack of manners and his clearly overdeveloped alcoholic habit, is not an idiot, and his ability to read body language is not compromised in the least. If only the same could be said of the filter between his brain and his mouth.

"That didn't take long," he says with a leer, and there it is in his eyes, the sharp-edged _meanness_—the thing that finally made her walk away from him, from everything she invested in them. She wonders even now if it was something new, something done to him, or if that is just wishful thinking, an excuse for why she was too damn naive to see it was always there in the first place.

She practically feels his next words coming, but still isn't prepared for them.

"Then again," Jonas says, "I'd never expect a gal like you to let go of one branch until she had a nice, firm grip on the next."

It isn't even so much the words, the insult, that hurt so much as who they are coming from, a man she seriously contemplated _marrying_. The fact that part of her still feels sorry for him. She should tell him to go to hell, but the air in her lungs is burning way too much to get the words out.

"Okay," Jack says, his body tense next to hers. "Now my patience is well past the point where I kick your ass, drunk and pathetic or not."

Sam puts out a hand to stop him—after all, if anyone is kicking anyone's ass tonight, it's going to be her—when one of Jonas' buddies appears, looking wary and harried and sober enough to know trouble when he sees it.

"Hey, Jonas," Tom says, taking him by the shoulders. "I think you've had enough fun for one night."

Jonas protests, but Tom's firm grip on his shoulder persuades him to move away with him. "Sorry, Sam," Tom says sheepishly back over his shoulder as he drags Jonas back off to their booth in the corner.

Sam watches them retreat for a moment, before spinning on her heel and walking off in the exact opposite direction. She doesn't have a destination in mind, just _away_, and doesn't slow down until she's crossed the entire bar and is well out of sight of Jonas and his friends.

The farthest part of the bar just happens to be a dark, clogged dance floor full of clinging pairs of people shuffling to corny music. She comes to a stop as she runs out of space and Jack is there just one step behind. She feels jittery between the adrenaline and embarrassment and plain old anger. She thinks longingly of the drink she left behind on the bar, wishing she'd had the foresight to grab it as she left.

She's still deciding her next move when Jack touches her shoulders, tentative at first as if to test out her reaction, and then sliding down her arms when she doesn't pull away. Far from unwelcome, she leans back into the touch—a touch so different from the one she just escaped. It doesn't demand anything of her.

"Hey," is all he says, soft and understanding and somehow familiar.

She closes her eyes because maybe she doesn't feel like she's about to blow her top anymore, but that only makes way for the second place, much less welcome reaction since she's already cried all the tears over that asshole that she ever plans to.

Maybe Jack gets that, because he guides her further into the anonymous crush of people, turning her to face him and pulling her in close. It's some swaying, generic song she's probably heard a million times on the radio, but that's not what she's paying attention to as they move through the crowd. His hands move smoothly up and down her back, like he somehow knows exactly how to touch her, what she needs. She breathes out, turning her face into his neck, concentrating on letting go of everything but the unexpected ease of this.

The jukebox clumsily shuffles through a few songs before Sam works up the nerve to speak, to answer the question she knows he has to be wondering. Had she really been in a relationship with that asshole? Willingly?

"I may have a compulsion to fix things," she says against his shoulder, her fingers twisting in the fabric of his sleeve.

"Things?" he parries, not letting her get away with lying to either of them.

She sighs. "People," she edits.

He lets out a soft huff, something between humor and self-deprecation, even as his hands continue their soothing rhythm up her back. "Well, that explains a lot."

Lifting her head from his shoulder, she looks him straight in the eye. "I don't think you're broken."

He gives her a wry look of disbelief.

She shakes her head, feeling a different sort of frustration building. "Maybe you were. But whatever happened out there to change that, I didn't have anything to do with it."

His eyes slip past her. "And if you did?"

It's a startling confession, and she isn't sure whether to be flattered or terrified, this idea that she might have had anything to do with the staggering transformation of this man from hard-edged hopelessness to the sort of dawning wakefulness that characterizes him now. Dazed, but moving forward.

Maybe she can admit it _was_ the broken man who drew her into that reckless first night, the very lack of long-term consequences as appealing as anything in her life at the time. But she still thinks she would have walked right past him that second time if not for some fundamental, visible shift in him.

It isn't the broken man that attracts her, continues to draw her in, but rather the man crawling back up from the dark, rebuilding himself day by day.

She doesn't know how to put any of that into words, so she settles for touching his chin, bringing his gaze back to hers. "That's not why I'm still here."

He stares back at her and for a moment, she feels like she's being given a rare look at the honest, bare man. "You sure about that?"

"Yes," she says because her surety of this fact may be all she has.

"Well," he says, disappearing back behind a self-deprecating smile, "at least one of us is."

She smiles, trailing her finger along the edge of his collar, loving the way his eyes darken at the contact. "It's a start," she says, because for once she just can't obsess about where this may be going, what exactly it is she's getting herself into. Maybe knowing where they are right now is enough—only half-certain or not.

"Yeah," he agrees, drawing her closer, molding her body against his. He's still looking at her like he can't quite believe she's here. "It's one hell of a start."

She relaxes into him and the sway of the music, everything forgotten but the feel of his hands, sure and steady against her waist, the texture of his jaw against the skin of her neck as he leans into her.

Because maybe the real truth is she's hoping he'll be the one to fix her.

.fin.


	3. Falling Back to Earth: Chapter One

Title: Falling Back to Earth  
Author: Annerb  
Summary: Jack gets the call from the SGC. He should have been cynical enough to know it was all too good to last. Sequel to 'Convergence' and 'Linger'. 'Children of the Gods' AU.  
Rating/Warnings: Older teens, language, violence. Playing fast and sleazy with canon.  
Categorization: Drama, angst, action/adventure, AU, Sam/Jack  
Author's Note: Because someone asked, 'But what happens when they get called back to the SGC?' and I didn't really know the answer. There were many, many, many early incarnations of this fic, and it wasn't until I actually sat down and read the Air Force's fraternization regulations that the answer finally took shape. So here it is, in all its indulgent glory! Special thanks to aurora_novarum for being brave and telling me I was being lazy. Which I really, really was. Couldn't live without you, Aurora!

**Falling Back to Earth**

Chapter One

The one-year anniversary of Jack's return—from Abydos, from fatalism, from whatever—slides around without his notice. It's not like he commemorates that date any more than he does any of the other milestones he'd rather forget. Letting go of them is the only way he stays sane, most days.

Only then the call comes.

He's been keeping busy. Mostly with an endless stream of projects required by the little house he bought just far enough out of DC to ensure trees and privacy and a clear view of the night sky.

The stars mean a hell of a lot more now, not just pretty twinkles and the odd meteor shower anymore. It should be frightening: this knowledge that there are things out there bigger and more powerful than anyone on Earth can hope to imagine, but mostly he doesn't think about Ra and his cold, sinuous features. He thinks of mastadges and giant tent cities and lizard monsters that taste just like chicken. He wonders, sometimes, what Dr. Daniel Jackson may be up to, if Sha're still has him wrapped around her little finger.

He'll find himself grinning as he tries to imagine it. There's an ache maybe, the knowledge that he will never see that place or those people again, probably never walk through the Stargate. But he's already gotten more out of it than he ever would have dared imagine—a second chance he still spends time convincing himself he deserves.

There's progress though. Tiny steps in the right direction that he usually only recognizes long after the nausea fades, the sound of children's shrieks straining to be commonplace rather than torturous.

He thinks he's still a hell of a long way off from fine, but he has things to do and a woman who may not think he's a waste of space, and as she'd once told him, it's a place to start.

At least it had been, before the call comes.

Colonel O'Neill they call him, and just like that the waiting is done. He thinks he should have been cynical enough to know it was all too good to last.

* * *

"Hey," Sam calls out. Jack hears the front door shut behind her, her bag hitting the floor with a soft thump.

It's like this a lot lately, nothing but a lazy weekend and the two of them, no need for knocking on the door or calling ahead. Or at least it had been.

"Jack?"

She pokes her head into the family room. Jack doesn't get up, still sitting in his leather lounger, a beer open in one hand despite the indecently early hour. He idly glances around and thinks, _I just started getting this room exactly how I want it._

"Jack?" Sam asks again, crossing the room to touch his arm. "What's wrong?"

His arm flexes under her touch. They've been taking things really slow with a million steps back in between, and he's not sure what this little monkey wrench is going to do to their carefully stacked deck of cards. Or maybe he knows _exactly_ what it's going to do and that's the problem. But not saying the words won't make it any less true.

"I've been recalled," he says.

She lets out a soft sound, leaning against the arm of his chair. He looks up at her, sees that her expression is distant in a way he knows means her brain is zipping through the possibilities.

"Do you think they know?" she asks, flawlessly zeroing in on the same question that's been plaguing Jack all morning.

He still doesn't know what possessed him to actually tell her what happened on Abydos. Hell, maybe he'd just needed to tell _someone_. Her clearance level hardly makes it any less criminal.

Maybe he thought she deserves to know that the gate still goes somewhere, buried by rocks or not.

He shakes his head. "I don't know how they could. But I can't think of any other reason for them to bother with me." He's just a twice-retired colonel with a colorful file and a penchant for staring up at the stars.

"Something must have happened," she says, and Jack thinks if it did, she'd have a much clearer picture why, still being in possession of both position and clearance.

As if to offer further damning evidence of just how screwed he is, her cell phone chooses that moment to ring. They look at each other like they somehow know the moment she answers it everything will change.

She pushes off the edge of the chair, pacing to the window before answering the phone. "Captain Carter," she says. She doesn't have a poker face to speak of, and he suspects that's why she's got her back to him. "Yes, sir. I understand, sir."

The conversation, if it can be called that, continues in this vein for a while. Every new 'sir' that passes her lips just layers more and more tension on his shoulders. He's considering a trip to the kitchen for another beer when she finally hangs up, pocketing her phone and leaning on the window casement in front of her.

"You too?" he asks, staring at the empty bottle in his hand.

She doesn't answer right away, and when she finally turns to look at him, she's gnawing on her bottom lip like she's working out all the permutations. "Yeah, me too," she confirms.

Jack nods. "You get any clearer idea why?"

Pushing off the wall, she crosses the room, sitting down on the arm of his chair. "Just something with the Stargate."

He touches her back, his fingers trailing down the length of her spine. "You going to come visit me in the big house? Bake a file into a cake for me?"

"You did what you thought was right," she says, her voice fierce and protective.

It means a hell of a lot to hear her say that, probably more than it should, but that doesn't change the material facts. "I doubt they'll see it that way."

She shakes her head. "I still don't think that's what this is about."

She's probably right. Criminals don't get polite calls asking them to get on a plane. They get MPs.

"If there's a mission…," she says and here it finally is, the real reason Jack's sulking with a beer in his favorite chair.

"Yeah," he says.

She takes a sharp little breath like she's steadying herself. "We'd have to tell them."

Jack isn't surprised by her adherence to their oaths of honor. Hell, he admires the heck out of it, despite what it means. "Yeah."

Her back is stiff as she sits perched on the edge of the armchair, and she doesn't look back at him. "They're going to make me choose."

Jack doesn't fool himself. He knows perfectly well that the cards aren't stacked in his favor, knows just how much she wants the Stargate. But for something that had started out as the very definition of casual and with as few strings attached as possible, the thought of her walking away now burns way more than he's prepared for.

"Jack?" She says it like a question, a request for an answer he doesn't have, her hand blindly reaching back for him.

Abandoning the beer bottle, he wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her back into his lap. He kisses her, his hands slipping into her hair. He doesn't miss the way she kisses him back—a little too hard, like she's trying to imprint this memory.

It tastes too much like goodbye.

* * *

Sam's reporting time isn't until 24 hours after Jack's. It's been complete silence between them since he left for Colorado, and she has no idea what's going on—what she might be walking into-as she arrives at the SGC. She tells herself the unexpected mission is what has her on edge and not Jack's silence, his sudden disappearance from her life.

She tries to believe it, distracting herself with the possibilities in front of her.

Abydos.

It's like a dream, if not for the nightmarish quality lent by their mission prerogatives laid out carefully in the file in her hand: determine if a threat to Earth exists on Abydos, and if it does, finish what Jack failed to do a year ago.

Reaching the end of the hall, Sam pauses just long enough to remember that this is the same stretch of hall where she first saw Jack.

_You won't appreciate it._

"I'm assigning Sam Carter to your team, Colonel," she hears from the briefing room, General Hammond's voice carrying out into the hall.

Smoothing one hand down the front of her jacket, Sam takes a deep breath and steps inside.

She barely recognizes Jack in his uniform because that man had been the stranger, the one she never really knew. There's something in his eyes as she salutes him though, in the insouciant little flick of a salute he sends back to her. Just familiar enough that she feels all her nerves settle, despite the uncertainty of these treacherous waters they are wading into.

At least he's not in the brig.

"Captain Samantha Carter reporting, sir," she says.

"But of course you go by 'Sam'," a major at the other end of the table remarks with a sly glance at his buddy next to him. Ah, the classics. Either she's a weak girly-girl or she's a raging lesbian hard ass. She thinks she should take comfort in the predictability of it all. At least this she knows she can handle.

"You don't have to worry, Major," she tosses back. "I played with dolls when I was a kid."

Across from her, Jack winces.

"G.I. Joe?" the major parries, refusing to let go of the overburdened innuendo.

"Oh, for crying out loud, Kawalsky. Cut it out," Jack snaps, apparently already having lost his patience for the little show. "General, can I speak to you for a moment? In private?"

General Hammond doesn't seem pleased by the request, but nods his head nonetheless.

Jack follows Hammond to his office, but pauses right before the door. "Uh, Captain Carter? You wanna step inside?"

She stares back at him, the other men at the table overly intent at the little beat of byplay. Jack jerks his head towards the door.

"Yes, sir," she says, taking perverse pleasure in the way he flinches at the honorific. Maybe his silence has put her more on edge than she thought.

Hammond eyes her as she enters and carefully closes the door behind her. "Colonel, I'm afraid Captain Carter's position on this mission is not negotiable, if that is what this is about."

"Sir," Jack says. "I don't know what sort of file you have on me..."

"I assure you, I know enough," Hammond says, his voice hard and Sam catches the edge of Jack's grimace. Apparently things are not off to a good start between the two of them.

"I meant…uh." Jack darts a glance at her. "Personally."

Sam closes her eyes.

"I'm not sure I understand you, Colonel."

Sam looks up to see that Hammond isn't directing the comment to Jack though, instead he's staring right at her and it's a little too close to a concerned friend of her father's rather than her new commanding officer.

Taking a breath, she dives in, saving Jack from his typical gracelessness. "Colonel O'Neill and I are acquainted, sir."

"Personally," Hammond repeats and Sam can only be thankful her father isn't here for this. She's convinced that is the only way this could be more uncomfortable.

She nods.

Hammond's brow furrows. "And you are still currently…involved?"

Next to her, Jack is conspicuously silent, and it finally clicks into place, the reason he hasn't contacted her even once after shipping out—plausible deniability. She can in good faith say they stopped seeing each other, that the relationship is in the past even if only by a matter of days.

This is all Jack's way of telling her it's up to her.

She can take this easy out, erase it all as a mistake, and go on this mission she damn well _deserves_ to be on. The one she's been waiting for her whole life. She's not going to throw that away because of a man, because of a relationship that is still undefined at best. They've never made any promises to each other.

All she has to do is say, 'No.'

She thinks it's probably a bit of a toss up who is the most surprised when what she actually says is, "Yes," all stubborn and unapologetic.

She is so monumentally screwed.

Hammond clears his throat. "This…complicates things."

Sam feels her stomach twist. She's going to be dismissed from this mission. Again. And this time it will have nothing to do with preconceptions and boys' club bullshit. She's let herself become the stereotype.

She thinks she may throw up.

"I'll step aside, sir," Jack says, and she shouldn't be surprised that he's willing to take the bullet for her.

Hammond, on the other hand, is less than impressed. "Excuse me, Colonel?"

"Hey, I'm retired," Jack says with a shrug. "I've got this knee thing too…"

Hammond looks like his head is about to explode. "Colonel, I don't think you understand the severity of your position at the moment. The only reason you are not down in the brig where you belong is because you are leading this mission. I think I already made it clear that I am not sending in others to clean up your mistakes."

Now it's Jack's turn to look murderous. "Are you saying that if I don't take this mission you're going to nuke the hell out of hundreds of people just to teach me my _lesson_?"

"You're not exactly leaving me with a lot of choices," Hammond shoots back, his voice edging towards a deep bark, a Texas twang building in his agitation.

Sam takes a step forward before it can escalate any further. "Remove me from the mission, sir."

"Like hell," Jack says.

She tries to smile, but knows she doesn't quite pull it off. "It's the only decision that makes sense."

"You are the foremost expert on the Stargate, Captain Carter," Hammond says, and it's nice to hear that acknowledged for once, openly and without conditionals, but it doesn't change anything. She made her choice.

"And I would have loved the chance to live up to that, sir."

"Then give me an alternative."

She knows what he's asking her.

Next to her, Jack shifts and for the first time since she stepped into this office, she allows herself the luxury of looking at him. She sees it in the gaze he's leveling on her. _Just do it_. He doesn't think he's worth losing this over.

Somehow, that just makes her even more certain that he is.

God, when did this happen? How did she let him get so far under her skin?

She swallows, turning back to Hammond. "I'm sorry, sir. I don't have one to offer you."

"You're certain?" he presses, trying to give her a chance to salvage her career.

She feels like she's got a stomach full of lead, but somehow manages to nod.

Hammond echoes the gesture, short and clipped and pissed like he's been pushed to a decision he never wanted to have to make. He stands up and Sam feels her heart stutter in her chest because nothing he feels the need to deliver from his feet can be good.

"Then you leave me no choice," Hammond says, his posture shifting.

Both Sam and Jack stand a bit more at attention in response.

"Because your relationship—deemed unprofessional through the potential to erode morale, discipline, and unit cohesion—is unacceptable, I hereby order you both to cease and desist your personal relationship from this moment forward."

Sam sucks in a breath. She knows the rules well enough, understands the need for them, just never thought to have them apply to her. Only on the other end of it does it seem quite so ridiculous, this concept that an order can just erase it all like it never happened.

Hammond leans forward on his hands. "I take it you both understand the severity of potential penalties should you choose to ignore this order."

Sam would just have her career ruined. Jack would no doubt also get to spend some quality time in prison, in no small part thanks to his actions on Abydos.

She can't believe this is happening.

"Have I made myself clear?" Hammond says.

"Yes, sir," they answer together. Dutiful. Compliant.

Only more like left without any choice.

"Good," Hammond says. "Then let's finish this damn briefing."

And just like that, it's over, just as suddenly and unexpectedly as it had begun.


	4. Falling Back to Earth: Chapter Two

**Chapter Two **

Sam is waiting in the hall for the rest of her newly formed team to get kitted, and she's probably never felt more isolated than getting geared up in the tiny single women's bathroom. Nice, clear, loud signal there. This facility seems unprepared for its new incarnation on a multitude of levels and she tries not to take that as a bad sign. After all, she doesn't believe in signs.

Kawalsky and Ferretti appear, and she pushes off the wall to join them, shouldering her pack. They both give her solemn little nods, which would be more believable if they didn't follow up with giving each other meaningful glances. They think Jack was fighting her place on the team, trying to get rid of her, and she supposes that is still better than the truth.

She bites down on her tongue and refuses to let any of the choice retorts rising in her mind escape.

Meanwhile, Jack has stepped out into the hall, glancing between the three of them.

Kawalsky and Ferretti try to look innocent and take off down the hall. Sam moves to follow them, but Jack stops her.

"Captain," he says, reaching out to touch her arm only to draw his hand back, his fingers contracting into a fist.

She turns. "Sir?"

She doesn't miss his wince and she wonders how long it's going to be like this, walking on eggshells, thinking through every action and word three times before committing them.

She watches Jack transform before her eyes, expression becoming bland and cut off, and suddenly he's the epitome of the tough guy Colonel. God does it hurt to see.

"There's just one thing I wanted to discuss, Captain," he says, business-like and almost detached.

She stiffens, bracing for his reincarnation as every other gung-ho CO ass she's ever had to deal with. She really hopes this isn't going to be some reminder that she actually has to do what he says now, like she's not capable of understanding basic chain of command.

Unfortunately, this commander has also learned to read her rather well and raises a finger as if to stop her internal raging. "Hey," he says. "Right there, that's what I'm talking about. You need to quit it with this machismo crap."

She stares back at him in complete horror. "Excuse me?" She thinks she manages to sound fairly in control and not at all like she's considering decking him. Most of all though, she hates the disappointment welling in her stomach, the realization that maybe he really isn't any different after all.

To her surprise, Jack's face softens. "Look, I know you've gotten a lot of shit over the years, but I'm not West. Or Jonas. You have nothing to prove. You wouldn't be on this mission if you hadn't earned it just like the rest of us."

This is pretty much the last thing she expects to hear, but that's Jack, always throwing her curve balls when least expected. She feels her shoulders relax, and she's beginning to get her first glimpse of what must make him an outstanding CO. He pretends to be dumb as dirt to amuse himself, but he gets people.

"Just do your job and let the stupid stuff go. Don't let these boneheads get to you," he says, gesturing in the direction the rest of their team has disappeared into. "They're good guys. It just might take them a bit to get used to you."

"Get used to me?" she repeats. She hates the idea of anyone needing to adjust to her presence.

"Hey, I know it isn't fair. You're just…" He waves at her body as vaguely as possible, as if scared to actually look at her too closely.

"A woman?" she asks curtly.

There's a crack in his façade for a moment, the flash of an intimate, foolish grin that seems to say, 'Oh, believe me, I've noticed,' before he clears his throat, his eyes snapping away from her.

"Attractive," he says, like he's searched for the most neutral term in the universe to describe her. "You kind of make their brains mushy."

She'd find this hilarious if it weren't so damn painful. "Okay," she says, wanting to let him off the hook and get this conversation over as soon as possible.

But despite what it might feel like, Jack probably hadn't started this conversation just to torture either of them, and seems to want his material point understood. "I can't have you doing unpredictable things just to prove you're as strong and badass as the boys. You get that, right?"

She feels her face color as she remembers her less-than-professional verbal sparring with Kawalsky and Ferretti in the briefing. She'd just already been stretched so damn thin that she couldn't deal with their crap on top of everything else. But she can't afford to bring any of that into the mission—it's too dangerous. That's what Jack is reminding her. He's trying to protect the team as much as her.

"I get it," she promises.

"Yeah?" he asks, giving her a critical look.

She squares her shoulders. "Yes."

He seems appeased, nodding his head. "Okay." His eyes dart across her face and for a second she thinks he's going to say something, reach out and touch her, but then just as quickly it's gone. He jerks his head down the hallway. "Lets go do this mission."

"Yes, sir," she says, trying to work up the wonder that she knows is in her somewhere, beneath all this fallout. Today she is finally stepping through the Stargate. It's something.

Maybe it can be everything.

They start walking down the hallway. "Besides," Jack says. "You should have seen the shit they gave Daniel."

Despite herself, she smiles.

* * *

Jack watches the gate grind its way into life, far more unsettled by this second trip than he'd been by the first. He tells himself he just misses Daniel's obnoxious sneezing.

Right.

Sam is standing a few paces behind, and it's weirder than it should be to see her fully kitted, helmet in place, pack on her back, and all of it handled with ease and obvious competence. She's as much military as he is, but this is the part of their lives that never intersected, were never meant to overlap. Since they got together, he's just been the retired, grouchy ass, and he thinks it must be weird for her too.

All of which he really should not be thinking about, and not for the first time, he wonders if Hammond is out of his fucking mind. But when Jack's choice is between Abydos getting nuked and following Hammond's sadistic rules, it's not really a decision.

The gate swooshes into life and Jack finds himself instinctively looking to Sam, wanting to see her reaction to the thing she has yearned for for so damn long. She's every bit as enthralled as he expects. He forces himself to look away.

Glancing up at the control room, Jack sees Hammond nod, giving his team the go ahead. "All right," Jack says, waving Ferretti and Kawalsky up the ramp. "Let's get moving."

Ferretti and Kawalsky disappear into the puddle, Sam keeping pace with Jack as he steps forward. She pauses in front of the wormhole next to him, staring back at it with wide-eyed wonder.

Far too conscious of Hammond's eyes on them, Jack gives her a curt, "Captain," to get her to go through.

She darts a glance at him, looking embarrassed to be caught out like a curious kid. Damn does he just want to stand here and let her take her time, maybe tease her about it. He thinks shoving her through might just be worth the grilling she'd give him.

He bites down on the impulse and jerks his head to indicate she should go.

She nods, her hands tightening on her weapon and face wiping clean before she steps through.

She's heaving off to the side of the gate when he makes it through, but she's still got her weapon up and ready and one eye on their surroundings even as she's green around the gills. Kawalsky and Ferretti are busy securing the perimeter. Jack swallows his own nausea from the rocky ride, stepping forward into the chamber.

From the look of the place, it's been abandoned in haste very recently, a fire still lit in the middle of the room, flickering brightly against the warm yellow walls.

Jack steps a short distance into the room, and a kid with a weapon pops out. Jack lifts his weapon with one hand, the other held out flat palmed towards the kid. "Whoa there," he says. "Any chance Daniel is around?"

The kid ticks his head to one side, and Jack thinks 'Daniel' may be the only word he understood.

Then the man himself appears around a corner. "Jack," he says, waving for the kid to lower his weapon. "Hey."

"Expecting trouble?" Jack asks, his eyes darting back towards the kid.

"Just being cautious," Daniel says, voice slow and contemplative like he's working something through. Some things just don't change it seems.

Jack sees another few faces peer out from hiding places. Daniel gestures for them all to come forward and the next thing Jack knows they are all being swarmed by warm greetings. Kawalsky and Ferretti are introducing Sam around as they find old friends in the crowd, so Jack is free to focus on the familiar, dark haired kid holding out a lighter to him.

"Nah," Jack says to the boy, refusing to take back the gift. "I took your advice and quit."

Skaara's grin is impossibly large and Jack gives in to the impulse to give the kid a giant bear hug. Pulling back, he catches Sam watching him, their eyes connecting for just a moment before she smiles and looks away.

Jack turns to Sha're next, who has materialized by Daniel's side. "Sha're," Jack says. "Nice to see you again."

"And you as well, O'Neill," she returns in lilting, nearly perfect English. Daniel has clearly been busy. Come to think of it, Jack hears a lot of English rattling around the chamber.

"So what brings you here?" Daniel asks, one arm wrapped around Sha're.

Right, the mission. "It's a bit of a tale," Jack says.

"Then you should sit," Sha're says, taking control of them all and settling them around the fire. "And we will gladly hear it."

As a sandstorm sweeps up outside the temple, they all sit and let Sha're feed them while Jack fills Daniel in on the unexpected appearance of Ra's evil twin on Earth.

Jack carefully hasn't sat next to Sam, leaving her wedged between one of the Abydonian kids staring at her like she's the first woman dressed in pants he's ever seen, and Kawalsky, who seems to be finally warming up to her some.

After a while, Daniel and the Abydonians start in on tales about things on Abydos since they left, and Jack's attention begins to wander. It's clear that whoever that glowing eyed alien had been, he did not come from here. Which means he won't have to blow up their gate. Small favors. He tries to use the time to focus on compartmentalizing, because all this sitting around isn't doing wonders for his mindset. Especially since Sam keeps laughing at the antics around her. It's distracting. And not just because he's not the one making her laugh.

God. This whole thing is completely screwed.

He wishes Sam had just taken her out with Hammond, claimed they were no longer involved, that she'd gladly trade him for the mission. Selfish, maybe, but it's a hell of a lot more galling, knowing she would have screwed it all to be with him if it had been her choice, knowing that this thing had come to mean more to her as well. All but her oaths, the direct order that makes all of that incidental anyway. So why couldn't she just have taken the out and left him with the comforting illusion that the gate meant more to her anyway?

He just wishes he didn't have to know.

"Jack."

He looks up to find Daniel regarding him like maybe this isn't the first time he called his name. "Yeah?"

"You okay?" he asks, squinting down at Jack in that annoying way of his he has that means he's seeing a lot more than Jack likes.

"Fine," Jack says, making his voice brusque. Giving Daniel even an inch to work with is always a bad idea.

Daniel gives him a wry, twisted little smile. "Whatever you say, Jack." He hooks a thumb over his shoulder. "The sandstorm's died down. I wanted to show you something that might give you the answers you're looking for."

"Sure," Jack says, gratefully pushing to his feet, wanting to be doing anything other than sitting and thinking.

Daniel glances back at Sam. "Wouldn't your Dr. Captain want to see this?"

She would. Hell, she's probably the only one who will be able to make sense of whatever the hell Daniel is showing him, but he just can't. He needs a little space if he's going to get through this.

"Kawalsky," he calls out. "Keep an eye on the place. I'll be back in twenty."

"Sure thing, Colonel," Kawalsky shoots back.

Jack doesn't linger to see Sam's reaction.

* * *

Sam watches Jack leave the temple with Dr. Jackson.

She's not exactly surprised that he's left her behind rather than including her in Dr. Jackson's show and tell. She's been watching the tension ratchet up in Jack's shoulders from the corner of her eye for a good hour now.

She tells herself that all he needs is a little space. She tries to believe that herself.

Neither of them is going to fall apart because of this, she reminds herself. They've survived without each other before. They can do it again.

There was a time, somewhere around the five-month mark of this thing between them, when they both had a major loss of faith. She'd been convinced that he was using her as a life preserver and the pressure of being his suicide-recovery sponsor was way too much. Maybe he'd worried about that too, or maybe he had never really been convinced he wasn't anything more to her than a rebound fix-it project.

They hadn't talked about any of that though. It was one of their many, many unspoken rules. Like not asking where this was going, or where they'd been. The future was almost as carefully off limits as the past. So he became prone to long brooding periods that drove her up the wall, and she returned the favor by being prickly as all hell and eventually everything just…fell apart.

They didn't see each other for nearly a month. That was when Jack bought his house outside the city—though honestly 'house' is a bit of an exaggeration. More like 'shack'. But he spent the month building that thing back up from the baseboards and staring at the sky through his telescope. She'd thrown herself back into her work. Maybe it wasn't the Stargate, but it was her career, and she needed to get past that disappointment.

And so a month passed.

When he finally broke their long silence, he had sounded calm and settled on the other end of the phone and not at all like he'd crumbled on his own. Not anymore than she had.

They didn't _need_ each other. Nothing so desperate.

But she missed him. And apparently he wanted to be with her, not just cling to her.

"You never asked me why," he'd said that day on the phone.

He didn't have to elaborate; she knew what he meant. Why had he been willing to die out there on Abydos? But the real question was did she never ask because she didn't think he'd tell her, or because she didn't want to know?

She remembers taking a breath, making her decision. "I'd like to come out and see your place," she'd said, "if that's okay with you."

"Yeah," he said. "I think that would be good."

She'd driven out and they'd talked, really talked, and by the end of the weekend, this thing had clearly transformed into something else entirely. No more unspoken rules, no more off-limit topics. Meaning that being on Abydos with him all this time later, she has a pretty clear picture of just how important these people are to him.

She wonders if it would have been a lot easier to let him go if they hadn't had that break, if they hadn't discovered this actually was a relationship and not merely grabbing onto the closest warm body.

Those doubts may have been just enough to take the sting out of this forcible separation.

Someone nudges Sam in the ribs, bringing her attention back to the present. She looks up with alarm to find Kawalsky sitting next to her, watching her closely. Dammit. She shouldn't be letting her mind wander like this.

"Sir?" she asks, sitting up a little straighter, making sure her weapon is still within easy reach.

He spends a moment regarding her, and despite herself she tenses, preparing for something unpleasant.

His fingers tap against the butt of his weapon. "Here's the thing, Captain," he says, his expression hard like he's bracing himself. "I honestly just don't get it."

Sam feels her mouth go dry. What the hell is he talking about? "Sir?"

Kawalsky presses his lips together. "Could you maybe just…explain the whole wormhole thing again?"

Sam lets out a breath and only now does she realize that he actually looks sheepish and uncertain, like he thinks she may just launch back at him with some scathing remark or lord it over him that she knows something he doesn't. All of which is more than enough evidence that they have gotten off on the wrong foot.

_Let the stupid stuff go_.

Sam relaxes her shoulders. Smiling at him, she takes the olive branch he's extending. "Of course, sir." She glances across the plethora of food stacked up around them. "But I'm going to need a piece of fruit."

Kawalsky lets out a surprised laugh. "If you say so," he says and starts digging around the piles of food with her.

Sam has just finished her not-quite-an-apple as a representation of the galaxy spiel when the Stargate unexpectedly bursts into life behind them. Kawalsky is instantly on his feet, waving all the Abydonians to safety and ordering Sam and Ferretti into flanking positions by the gate.

She's barely slipped into position when two giant figures completely covered in some sort of metal armor step through. Their heads are overly large and shaped like cobras, seemingly the very definition of threatening. She recognizes them from the descriptions in mission reports, and the ones in the morgue. Alien foot soldiers. Reaching the same conclusion, Kawalsky snaps off the order to fire.

They unleash on the figures, even as three more step through the wormhole behind them.

The bullets are just bouncing off them, and oh, what Sam wouldn't do for some armor piercing ammunition right about now. She casts a critical eye over their armor, looking for any weakness and not finding any.

Across from her, Ferretti is getting backed into a corner.

"Shit," she breathes. Stepping around a pillar, Sam circles behind the armored alien advancing on Ferretti, and there it is, what looks like a small soft spot at the back of the knees. Taking a breath, she aims and sinks two bullets in each joint, the soldier stumbling forward, giving Ferretti time to grab better cover.

The cost of the small victory is that another one of the soldiers has snuck up on her perpendicularly, grabbing her by the shoulder and slamming her back against the pillar. Stars explode in her vision as her head connects soundly with the stone surface. Stunned by the unexpected blow, she's easily disarmed by the alien.

Sam breathes deeply, trying to clear her vision so she can counter whatever blow may be coming next. Instead, the snake hood drops open, revealing an all too human face, except for the large gold symbol embossed on his forehead. He stares down at her, then at his fallen comrade, and back again at her weapon he holds in his hand.

She takes advantage of his distraction to work one hand down towards her knife, pulling it free. He barely manages to parry the move in time, using her own weapon to knock the knife from her hand. He looks a little stunned, like he can't believe she's still fighting.

"What are you?" he asks and Sam is thrown by the question as much as the fact that it's in English.

The one in the gold armor approaches them, giving her an appraising look, his finger prodding her cheek like he's checking a horse for its pedigree. He says something in a language she doesn't understand, but the look he gives her is universal enough to make her skin crawl.

Sam renews her struggles against the solid body holding her in place, but it's no use.

The gold one lifts his hand, something like a ruby sitting in his palm. There's a burst of light and agonizing pain, and then nothing.

* * *

Jack stares up at the towering golden walls covered in symbols, trying to get his mind wrapped around the fact that the Stargate doesn't just go to Abydos. It explains where those snake men had come from, clears those gate room deaths from his conscious, but opens a much larger can of worms that Jack has a feeling will give him a nearly endless supply of headaches in the foreseeable future.

"Are you sure?" Jack asks again.

Daniel shrugs, looking up from his journal where he's been transcribing what he calls 'addresses'. "It's the only explanation that makes sense."

Jack thinks Sam would know. It's well past time he swallowed his stupid discomfort and utilized her skills like any commander in his right mind would.

"Okay," Jack says, pulling his cap back in place. "I'm going to head back and get Captain Carter and—."

Jack's radio crackles, Kawalsky's voice yelling, "Colonel, we're-." The words are swallowed by the sound of weapon's fire and raised voices before falling ominously silent.

"What was that?" Daniel asks, but Jack is already sprinting out the door, something terrible twisting in his gut.

Inside the temple it's a war zone, people moaning with pain, smoke and blood and the stench of burned flesh in the air.

"Sha're!" Daniel yells as he catches up to Jack. He runs around the space, frantically pulling back draped cloth and peering into alcoves. "Sha're!"

"I am here, Daniel," she says, looking up from a boy she is tending near the base of the gate. She has a streak of blood across one cheek, a gun slung across her chest, but otherwise looks unharmed.

Daniel crosses over to her side, kneeling next to her. He pulls her into an embrace, and she leans back into it. "I am fine, Daniel," she says, but her eyes are bright with tears, her hand unsteady on the boy's chest.

"What happened?" Jack asks.

Sha're glances at the Stargate. "Great beast-men like the ones who once served Ra. Four of them. And with them, a man of gold with the powers of Ra." She lifts one hand as if to mimic a hand-device.

"Ra?" Jack repeats. That just can't be true, unless Daniel was right and the Stargate goes more places than they thought, because he didn't come from Earth. And if Ra wasn't quite the last of his kind… Shit.

Sha're reaches for Daniel's robes, her fingers twisting in the fabric. "They took Skaara."

Jack jerks, his eyes passing over the room, falling on Ferretti a short distance away. One of the Abydonians is holding a bloody rag to his arm.

"Ferretti," Jack says, crossing over to him. The wound doesn't look life threatening, but there is a hell of a lot of blood.

Jack needs to get the gate dialed. Hell, where is Kawalsky? Where is Sam? He reaches for his radio.

"They took them, sir," Ferretti says, his fingers digging into Jack's arm. "Kawalsky and Carter."

Everything seems to slow. God, no.

"Where?" Jack asks. "Where did they take them? Did you see?"

Ferretti's jaw flexes. "No, sir. I'm sorry."

Jack thinks of the hundreds and hundreds of addresses Daniel showed him. How will they even know where to start?

Ferretti makes a sound of frustration. "I should have-."

Jack cuts him off. "It's okay, Major," he forces himself to says, even if it's a lie. Nothing is okay.

"I saw."

Jack turns to see Sha're standing over them. She holds Jack's gaze with a blazing one of her own. She points to her eye and then at the dialing device. "I saw the symbols. I remember."

"Daniel!" Jack shouts. "Open the gate to Earth, _now_."

Daniel is still standing stunned next to Sha're, but at Jack's voice, seems galvanized into motion. "Right, of course," he says.

Jack hefts Ferretti to his feet, moving towards the steps. "Daniel, you are coming back with us. No choice this time."

Daniel's head snaps around. "What? No, I can't."

Sha're looks up from the DHD where she is copying down symbols into Daniel's journal before she forgets. "Yes. You will return, Daniel," she says. "And I will go with you."

Daniel touches her arm. "Sha're."

She shakes her head, and she looks scared as hell, but steady. "He is my brother, and you are my husband. I go with you."

"The gate has to be buried," Daniel says, as if willing her to understand the risk they take by leaving today. "In case anyone else bad tries to come through."

Sha're swallows, looking back at her people. "So it will be."

"You're certain," Daniel says, one hand lifting to her cheek.

Her chin lifts. "Yes."

Daniel wanders out into the crowd of survivors, their hands reaching to touch any part of them. He's giving them orders about burying the gate, and Sha're simply stands and watches, her fingers clenching in the fabric of her robes.

She looks over at Jack. "We will find them, yes? My brother and your friends?"

Jack wants to say yes, to lie to both her and himself, but can't find the words. She seems to understand that, her lips pressing together.

"They will be found," she says, like there isn't any other outcome possible.

God, Jack really hopes she's right.


	5. Falling Back to Earth: Chapter Three

**Chapter Three **

Jack's hand taps impatiently against the butt of his weapon as he waits for the hastily formed group of marines to finish gearing up. It's taken just over 8 hours to get to this point. He's had to convince Hammond to send a retrieval team to the address provided by Sha're, and get a new team thrown together, properly briefed and outfitted. It feels like it's been days.

But here he finally is, standing with Daniel Jackson about to step onto an unknown alien world. Again. To be honest, he hadn't been thrilled at the prospect of taking Daniel along again, but as usual, Daniel had been convincing.

"I can understand the language, the customs. You'll need me," had been all Daniel said, Sha're standing calmly behind him, a silent, but no less stubborn presence.

Jack knew he was right.

Movement out in the hall catches Jack's attention, but rather than the four marines they are waiting on, it's Ferretti walking over to them. He's got his arm in a sling and probably shouldn't even be out of bed to judge from the pallor of his skin.

"Wish I could go with you, sir," he says, his voice tight.

Jack can appreciate the sentiment. Ferretti and Kawalsky have been pretty close since the first mission. Sharing a secret like Abydos has a way of doing that. "I know you do, Major."

He touches his injured arm, grimacing. "She really saved my ass out there."

"What?" Jack asks, turning to look at him.

"Carter," Ferretti says, still looking a little sour about the whole thing. "Got one of them down, right when I was sure my goose was cooked."

Jack isn't surprised to hear that, not really, but all he can think is the one sentence that's been haunting him since he first heard that damning crackle on his radio.

She shouldn't have even been there.

The marines bustle in then, the room tipping towards chaos as the gate begins to spin.

"Good luck, sir," Ferretti says, snapping off a salute.

Jack returns the salute, glancing up at Hammond in the control room.

Hammond looks like he wants to say something, but in the end merely nods his head, giving the mission the go ahead. Jack is relieved. He's not sure he can pull off the lie if Hammond asks him point blank. _Can you keep a clear head and do this?_

He doesn't have a fucking clue.

"I'm first," Jack says, striding up past Makepeace and his marines. "Daniel, you follow last, got it?"

Daniel lifts his hands, stepping behind the heavily armed marines. "Sure, whatever you say." Maybe he's trying to convince Jack he's capable of behaving.

Jack will believe that when he sees it.

"Let's go," he says, stepping into the event horizon.

Jack doesn't step out into a temple like on Abydos or even a desert, but a large clearing open to the sky with rows and rows of tall stones stretching outwards like some crazy Stonehenge. At first glance, there are no other signs of civilization, no guards, no people at all. Why the hell would the aliens take their people here? He really hopes Sha're didn't get the address wrong.

Behind him, the marines have materialized, spreading out in standard formation. None of them show any signs of nausea or discomfort at the disturbing ride, but Jack knows that's mostly bravado.

"Doesn't look like an alien planet," one of the marines mutters.

"What were you expecting, purple trees?" another shoots back.

Jack's too busy scoping out what looks like a worn path leading away into the trees to shut them up. It's probably their best chance of finding civilization.

Daniel steps up next to Jack, reaching out to touch one of the stones. "Amazing," he says.

"Daniel," Jack says, pointing towards the path.

Daniel squints in the indicated direction. "Yeah," he agrees. "This looks like it's a ceremonial space, perhaps only used in special religious functions? That path will probably take us to any more permanent settlements."

"Walkable distance?" Jack asks, remembering just how far from the pyramid the Abydonian's city had been.

Daniel shrugs. "If they're at anything like the level of technology as the Abydonians, they would have to be. But I really can't say for certain."

It seems Daniel has learned a few lessons over the last year as well, not making rash promises without thinking them through. "Something tells me Ra didn't walk a whole lot."

"No, probably not." Daniel's eyes dart to the marines. "Either way, I'm not sure bursting into a city armed to the teeth is the best approach."

Jack glances at the marines, noting how tightly wound they are, fingers taut on the trigger. No, probably not the best strategy. He can't be sure they won't start shooting first and they are here for a rescue, not a standoff. Jack and Daniel alone may be able to slide in unnoticed if they are lucky.

Jack crosses back over to Makepeace, the ranking Marine. "Daniel and I are going to check this place out. You boys hold this position. And get that ridgeline rigged in case our exit isn't quite as smooth as we might hope."

"Yes, sir," Makepeace says. "You come in hot, we'll have a party waiting for you."

Now that is enthusiasm Jack can get behind. Makepeace turns to his men and snaps off orders.

"All right, Daniel," Jack says, tugging him away from the stones. "Time to say hello to the natives."

They start down the path.

* * *

Sam wakes slowly, pain pounding in her head like she's suffering from a four-alarm hangover. She doesn't know how much of that is from the throbbing lump at the back of her skull and how much is from that horrible device the Solid Gold dancer had used on her.

If the pain weren't bad enough, she opens her eyes to find that she is no longer in uniform, instead wearing a thin, white shift sort of thing that barely covers her body, dipping low in front and not reaching her knees. She refuses to think about the fact that someone undressed and redressed her. She's got enough trouble as it is.

The next bad piece of news is that she seems to be in a room full of similarly dressed women. The room they are in is like one giant bed, full of soft surfaces and silks and decorative pillows. Whoever these metal-clad aliens are, subtlety is clearly not their forte.

None of the women are talking or even looking at each other, and Sam wonders if that is due to language barriers or just a result of the fear that hovers like a stench in the air.

She turns to the woman closest to her, really no more than a girl of fourteen if Sam had to guess. "Excuse me," she says. "Can you tell me where I am?"

The girl merely lowers her eyes and shifts around to look in a different direction. Okay. So much for that.

Sam glances around the room, observing the women. It seems as if someone has gone to great lengths to find one of every type of woman in the galaxy. They are dark and fair, thin and voluptuous, red heads to deep blue-black hair and everything in between. Skimming the women, Sam doesn't see anyone resembling the description of the missing Sergeant, or anyone familiar from Abydos.

If this enemy has stuck to the pattern established by the original abduction, it is unlikely any of the men were taken from Abydos. It's a comfort, but only skin deep because it means that if she's going to get out of here she'll have to do it herself. No waiting around for rescue.

For a second, she imagines Jack's reaction at finding her missing from the temple, but shoves it quickly aside. Pushing gingerly to her feet, she looks down the length of the room. At the opposite end is what appears to be an open doorway flanked by columns. Is it possible that escape can be that easy?

Sam picks her way through the room. The women watch her progress with growing agitation, one going so far as to shake her head with a quiet hiss as Sam passes. At the doorway, Sam comes to a stop, but as far as she can tell, there is nothing there. Cautiously, she sticks one finger out, stretching towards the door. An unseen force shield of some sort leaps into existence, zapping her finger. She curses, pulling back and sticking her fried finger in her mouth.

So much for that exit.

Not ready to give up, she moves methodically around the entire perimeter of the room, looking for any exits other than the obvious. The women still watch her with wide eyes. She doesn't find anything even remotely promising by the time she's circled back around to the door.

Closer inspection of the wall near the door reveals something that might be an access hatch of some sort. Glancing around, Sam's eye falls on the decorative torch-like things on the wall every five feet or so. Reaching up, she pulls one down, blowing the flame out. It takes her nearly 20 minutes, but she manages to wrangle together a rough tool of sorts from the metal of the sconce. With it, she wedges the panel open. Inside is technology unlike anything she's ever seen. Rather than circuits or wires, there are crystals of various sizes and colors.

A soft hum added to the light shining out of the hatch tells her she's discovered more than someone's secret stash of jewelry. It seems more mechanical than that.

She cautiously taps one with a finger, not knowing if they carry current or not. There's no shock, but she still thinks it's probably smart not to touch more than one at a time. She stares at the crystals, wondering if it is possible that simply pulling one of the things out of place could somehow lower the shield. Or just give her one hell of an electric shock.

What if she simply smashed them all with her torch?

At the sound of approaching footsteps, she twists to her feet and leans against the wall in front of the open panel, shoving the broken light fixture under one the decorative pillows with her foot.

She does her best impression of vacancy and submission that she can muster, but one of the guards still detours from his friends, heading directly for her. Damn.

"What are you doing?" he demands and she thinks it may be the same guy with the gold tattoo from Abydos.

She doesn't answer him, just stares at the floor and tries to look helpless.

The guard doesn't seem to buy her innocent act though, as he grabs her arm, forcibly moving her away from the front of the panel, staring down at the exposed hardware. Taking her wrist, he forces her hand up, and the tool she'd tried to hide in the folds of her skirt. He squeezes her wrist until she lets go of it with a gasp of pain. He kicks it away.

"You dare mettle with secrets of the gods?" he accuses.

Sam doesn't think that's the sort of question that's really supposed to be answered.

His fingers tighten on her arms and she tenses, waiting to see what sort of punishment she will receive. He reaches for her chest and she tries to step back away, but he only touches her dog tags. "Where do you come from?"

Sam looks up him, surprised by the question. Something in his expression makes her actually answer. "Earth."

He shakes his head. "This means nothing to me."

Right. She wracks her brain, trying to think of another way. She gently tugs against his grip on her hand. "May I?"

Reluctantly, he lets go of her wrist and she ducks down to the remains of the lamp she dismantled, swiping her finger through the pile of ash she dislodged. Turning to the wall, she sketches the point of origin for Earth. The guard almost automatically wipes it away with his palm, but not before she sees recognition on his face.

He grabs her again, shaking her a little as he stares down at her, and he's damn intimidating, but Sam refuses to look away.

His eyes narrow. "Why are you not afraid?"

She looks up at him and takes a risk. A huge, stupid risk, but her instincts are telling her it's well past time for stupid. "Because that thing you serve is not a god."

Something flashes in the guard's eye and he strikes her across the face, brutal and unexpected, knocking her to the floor.

He leans down, pulling her up close to him again like he might try to get another hit in, but his hands are surprisingly gentle on her arms. "Do not speak of such things again," he says, somehow a warning rather than an edict, and now she sees the other guard behind him, standing just close enough to have heard her reckless proclamation.

She lowers her eyes, just to show she's capable of being smart, that she gets what he's saying. "I understand."

The guard takes another moment to look at her, his eyes lingering on the bruising that is no doubt blossoming over her face. "Yes," he says, nodding. "This is safer."

She has no idea what he's talking about, but the next thing she knows, he is shoving her away, corralling her towards the rest of the women. The second guard gestures at her, moving as if to take her, but the first one barks something in their language and points at another woman instead.

This one is so quiet, so hopeless, that she doesn't even bother protesting as the guards manhandle her out of the room.

After they are gone, Sam slowly counts to one hundred and then crosses back over to the panel next to the door.

She's got a long way to go to hopeless.

* * *

They've been walking for nearly fifteen minutes when Jack abruptly stops in the middle of the path, Daniel almost running into him from behind.

"Jack?" Daniel asks, doing a little jig to keep his feet.

Jack doesn't answer, just grabs Daniel's shoulder and forces him off the trail and into the overgrowth covering the slope.

Daniel opens his mouth to protest but Jack shushes him. "Someone's coming," he whispers, hunkering down behind a bush when he's decided they are high enough to get a clear view of the path below.

Daniel cocks his head to one side, listening. The shuffle of feet on the path is clearly audible now.

Eight or so figures appear on the path, walking in uniform formation. They are all wearing the same outfit, something that looks like a hood and cape made out of snakeskin. They carry staves, but look to be made of wood rather than the metal weapons Jack's seen before.

Daniel shifts, turning his body down the hill like he's thinking about bouncing down there and introducing himself. Jack doesn't hesitate to grab Daniel by the scruff of his neck, stalling his movement.

"They don't look like soldiers, Jack. More like priests," Daniel insists. "I could speak to them, find out-."

Jack pushes him down behind a strand of trees. "Not a chance in hell, Daniel," he bites out, his voice low. He is not letting Daniel's curiosity get anyone killed. No way, no how. "We do this quietly. No rushing ahead blindly. There is way too much on the line."

Daniel's brow scrunches at the vicious edge in Jack's voice, a bit like a bloodhound picking up on a new scent.

"Besides," Jack rushes on before Daniel can ask the questions he can see building, "I promised Sha're I'd bring your ass back in one piece."

Daniel's expression clears at the thought of his wife. He nods, sitting back on his heels. "Yeah, okay."

Appeased that Daniel is actually going to stay put, Jack reaches for his radio. "Makepeace, you've got about half a dozen hostiles heading your way. They don't look armed, and Daniel seems to think they might be priests. See if you can stay out of sight."

"Understood, sir. And if we're seen?"

Jack presses his lips together. "Then find a way to keep them quiet and out of the way for a few hours." They can't afford to blow this.

"Yes, sir."

"Going radio silent. O'Neill out."

Jack settles back on his heels, visualizing the progress of the priests down the path and estimating how long it will take them to near the gate. He's got his ears strained for the sound of gunfire. He trusts the Marines' ability to blow shit up a lot more than their ability to blend into the scenery.

Next to him, Daniel has pulled out a small notebook and pen and seems to be jotting down a few observations. Jack glances at the page and sees a rough sketch of the stones near the gate and the priests with words like 'theocracy?' and 'sun worship?' scrawled next to them.

Jack's just glad to have Daniel's attention focused in a safe direction while they wait.

A half hour later, the priests are heading back up the path looking as serene and untouched as they had on the way out. Jack closes his eyes with real relief. Giant hurdle number one dealt with.

Daniel shifts, putting his journal away.

Jack puts out a hand to keep him still. "We're going to give them a bit of a head start and then follow," he says, pulling out his field glasses to watch the priests' retreat.

Daniel settles back down without further protest. "Tell me about Captain Carter."

"What?" Jack asks, keeping the glasses firmly pressed to his eyes.

"I didn't really get to talk to her before…," Daniel trails off awkwardly.

Jack feels his gut clench.

"I just want to know what she's like."

Jack makes a vague sound of annoyance and tries to refocus on the priests. They're turning a corner now, but despite his best intentions, that isn't what he's seeing anymore. In his mind, Sam is shooting him a wicked grin as she leans over a pool table. She's unexpectedly soft and vulnerable on early Saturday mornings as she hogs all the blankets on his bed. She's staring at a wormhole for the first time with something bordering on pure rapture.

"Jack?" Daniel prods.

Jack clears his throat, stowing his field glasses with jerky motions. "She's a geek, Daniel. What else is there to say?"

"And a soldier," Daniel observes. Jack doesn't bother correcting him. "Did you know her before?"

"I never served with her," he says, pushing to his feet and adjusting his pack. Technically, it's true. "Hammond assigned her."

"Oh," Daniel says. "Some first mission, huh?"

Yeah, some first mission, Jack thinks, squashing down that small, dangerous part of his brain that wants to do nothing but slam heads together, or worse, panic. He forces himself to remember Sam as she was in the gateroom, armed and competent and in her element. Wherever she is, she's fine. They all are.

"Let's get moving," Jack says, leading Daniel back down to the path.

* * *

Sam cautiously pulls a crystal, a long, thin green one, but can't see any change in the shield blocking the door. As far as she knows, all she's done is kill the air conditioning. She's been doing this for hours, pulling crystals and resetting them, but she feels like an ape playing with silicone chips for all the good it's done her.

She's been at it for another hour or so when there's a shuffle of sound approaching from the hall again. She shoves the crystals back in place, spending one foolish moment trying to figure out if she could stow one on herself somehow. She's not sure she'll ever figure out what it is, but at the very least, maybe she could use it as a weapon. Poke someone's eye out, maybe?

Glancing down at her dress though, she comes to her senses and abandons the crystals. Dropping back into the groups of women in the room, she works to make herself as inconspicuous as possible as a crowd of figures enter the space.

This time there aren't simply soldiers, but also a collection of flamboyantly dressed men. One is wearing what looks like an entire ostrich; another is apparently overly fond of leather. They vary in skin color and clothing, but all share a common elegance, a sinuous sort of grace that is inexplicably menacing as they move through the space, their hard, empty eyes surveying the women like objects in a market. Some poke the women, pulling back their lips to see their teeth, one even going so far as to lift the dress away from the body of a woman to inspect her.

Sam tenses, preparing to fight if she needs to, but none of the men pause by her. Most seem to take one look at her face, the bruise there, and shake their heads like she's not worth the trouble.

_This is safer._

In the end, four women are dragged off.

The dozens of women remaining seem to breathe a sigh of relief, but Sam isn't completely convinced that the women taken might not be the lucky ones in the long run. Only the four original guards are left, their long, staff-like weapons held stiffly in front of them.

Sam catches the eye of the guard and the regret she glimpses there raises the hair on the back of her neck.

He turns his back to her and sweeps out of the cell.

She's running out of time.


	6. Falling Back to Earth: Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

Lying on a high bluff, Jack focuses his binoculars on the city spreading out below him.

The forest bordering the path from the Stargate had dropped away after another two miles. The thick tangle of trees and brush were gradually replaced by farms and then close built structures that eventually culminate in an enormous fortified castle sitting at the apex of the next hill. The castle seems the most logical location for prisoners to be held, but leaves the problem of somehow finding their way through the sprawling city surrounding it.

Unlike Abydos, this planet seems populated by soldiers rather than slaves. Men, women, and children of solid, good health all move about the streets with the same black mark on their foreheads.

"This could be where they originate," Daniel postulates from his position next to Jack.

Frankly Jack couldn't care less where the alien soldiers come from. He just needs to figure out a way to get past them.

"Huh," Daniel says.

Jack lowers his binoculars, glancing over at Daniel. "What?"

"The marks on their foreheads, they look like a snake."

Jack glances down at the drawing Daniel's sketched out in his journal. "So?"

"So, in Egyptian mythology, Ra had a brother named Apophis whose symbol was the snake."

Brother? Great. Jack can only hope they hadn't been close. At least not close enough for this Apophis to take it personal that they shoved a nuke up Ra's ass. So much for being the last of his kind. "Exactly how many gods were there in Egypt?"

Daniel adjusts his glasses. "A lot."

"Wonderful," Jack breathes, lifting his binoculars and tracking the movement in the streets below. There's only a small contingent of humans present, most likely slaves to judge by their dress and activities, the way they bow out of the way of the soldiers. If Jack and Daniel can't pass for soldiers, their best bet of blending in will have to be the slaves.

"There," Jack says, locating a relatively isolated homestead on the outskirts. In the unattended yard is a clothesline with light-colored robes drying in the sun.

"What?" Daniel asks.

"Our way in."

* * *

The small road switchbacks its way up the rear side of the hill the castle sits on, seemingly purposefully tucked out of sight like no one wants to see a servant unless they absolutely have to. That's fine with Jack.

The stream of slaves walking up the road is accompanying various wagon-loads of supplies. Jack takes this to mean that either the castle is packed full of very hungry aliens, or some sort of special event is taking place. Either way, it allows Daniel and Jack to slip anonymously into a group of slaves with very little fuss.

Reaching the top of the path, the wagon and slaves come to a stop at what looks like a back entrance guarded by two of the aliens. The slaves begin to unload the wagon and carry the supplies up the stairs to the door. Jack jerks his head towards the wagon, picking up a flagon and leaving Daniel to follow his lead.

Jack's almost up the steps when one of the guards lowers his weapon across his path, grunting something to him. The alien doesn't seem angry so much as just wanting something from Jack. There's just the small problem that Jack has no idea what the hell the guy just said. He keeps his eyes trained on the ground, trying not to give the guy any reason to look too closely at him, hoping he might just let him pass.

The guard jabs Jack in the shoulder, repeating his question again.

Hell. Jack's almost resigned himself to blowing their cover when Daniel appears, holding out his flagon to the guard. The guard swipes it from his hands, barking something and gesturing at Jack.

Daniel starts rattling away rapidly in Abydonian, bowing lowly over and over again like a hyperactive cork bobbing in water, gesturing to Jack occasionally with an apologetic look on his face.

The guard doesn't look so much appeased as bored with Daniel's yammering, waving them forward into the castle with an impatient growl. Daniel not so subtly shoves Jack from behind, clearly wanting him to continue up the stairs. Jack doesn't need to be told twice.

"That was close," Daniel breathes once they are safely inside.

"What did you say?" Jack asks, keeping his head lowered as they follow the other slaves down a set of stairs.

Daniel grins. "I told him you were slow in the head, but strong in the back."

"Oh for…," Jack complains.

"Hey, it worked!"

Following the other slaves, Jack's eyes sweep down the length of the corridor, finally settling on a doorway halfway down on the right.

He slows his steps until the other slaves disappear around the next turn. "Here," he says, pushing Daniel towards the doorway.

It turns out to be a small twisting staircase spiraling downward into darkness.

"Down is always a good bet for prisons, right?" Jack asks.

"If you say so," Daniel says, peering down into the dark.

* * *

Unfortunately 'down' doesn't turn out to be as helpful as Jack might have hoped. The castle seems to be segmented into a below stairs servants quarters, and it takes them a good forty minutes to find a way out into the main area of the castle. Despite the weight and annoyance, Jack still has his damn flagon over one shoulder in case Daniel has to tap dance his way through explaining their presence somewhere they don't belong.

It turns out Jack needn't have worried. When they inevitably come face to face with various guards, more elegantly dressed slaves, or the occasional gold lamé cross-dresser, none of them give Jack or Daniel a second glance. They just press against the wall and keep their eyes glued to the floor as they pass. Either these guys aren't used to being infiltrated—and the soldier's armor and general clunking around tells Jack they probably aren't big on subterfuge—or they are just far too used to overlooking their lowly slaves. Just like back on Abydos. Jack is perfectly happy to use that against them.

It takes them another hour of eavesdropping on conversations and wandering to finally discover the giant jail cell down in the lowest part of the castle. Only one guard stands watch over the cell, but it's still one guard too many.

Jack's ruminating on their best approach when without a word, Daniel grabs the flagon from Jack's hands. He darts out into the corridor before Jack can stop him. Jack swears under his breath.

Daniel walks straight up to the guard and offers up the flagon with both hands, his head bowed.

The guard looks at him with a mix of obvious interest and suspicion, asking Daniel a question.

Daniel lifts his offering again, saying something back to him.

Jack's reaching for his weapon when the guard finally takes the flagon and disappears around the corner with it. He waits for the guard to return, but Daniel just waves animatedly for Jack to come out of hiding.

"What was that?" Jack demands as he joins Daniel in front of the cell.

"Obviously there is a big party going on somewhere," Daniel says. "I figured he might be annoyed not to be included."

Jack shakes his head. Daniel logic. There is nothing quite like it anywhere else in the universe.

"Kawalsky?" Jack calls as loud as he dares, his eyes skimming the crowd of men behind the bars for a familiar face.

"Colonel!" he says, shoving forward through the crowd.

Jack looks Kawalsky over, glad to see that he's in one piece.

"How did you get here, sir?" Kawalsky asks.

"Long story," Jack says, his eyes sweeping the cell. "Is Skaara with you?"

Kawalsky winces. "They took him, about two hours ago. Something about a choosing?"

Damn. Jack does not like the sound of that. "What about Captain Carter?"

"Carter?" Kawalsky echoes. "Did she get taken too?"

Jack feels his stomach drop. "She's not with you?"

Kawalsky shakes his head. "Haven't seen her, sir."

Daniel's eyes dart across the crowd of men behind Kawalsky. "Maybe they are keeping the women separate? In another cell?"

Jack shares a dark look with Kawalsky, neither of them pleased by what that might imply. Not to mention that despite their extensive wandering, Jack hasn't seen evidence of another cell down here, meaning Sam could be anywhere.

Jack tugs experimentally at the bars. They don't give even a millimeter. Kawalsky points across the hall. "I'm pretty sure those are the controls they use to open the door."

Jack and Daniel stare at the panel on the wall. It looks completely out of place in the face of the stone architecture and rusty bars. Jack can't even hazard a guess what the strange symbols could mean. He looks at Daniel.

"I could try," Daniel says. To his credit, he doesn't just start poking away at the keys.

"And if you're wrong?" Being able to read an alien language is one thing, understanding alien technology another all together. They can't afford to trip any alarms until they've tracked down Sam. He is not leaving here without her.

Crossing back to the cell, Jack slips Kawalsky his handgun and radio, and for good measure, a block of C4 and a detonator. Worst case, Kawalsky can bust himself out of here.

"Okay," Jack says. "We're going to track down Carter and Skaara, figure out the best way to get the hell out of here, and then come back for you."

Kawalsky nods, slipping the equipment into his jacket pocket. "Yes, sir."

"We'll be back," Jack repeats, wanting Kawalsky to know there is no way in hell he's leaving him in here.

Kawalsky nods. "I know you will, sir."

* * *

Jack and Daniel spend another fruitless two hours searching the lower floors. Luckily they prove to be lightly populated. Then again, they are also completely empty of female prisoners or convenient signs reading, "You are here", with a nice map of the entire castle.

It's on the third floor that they nearly trip over a procession of guards flanking an imperious looking couple, with a third slighter figure following behind. A _familiar_ figure despite the arrogant curl of his lips and the fancy robes.

Jack can't really say what makes him do it.

"Skaara," Jack says, stepping out in to the hall.

The boy turns and for one moment Jack has the stupid thought that everything is going to be okay. Then Skaara's hand lifts, his eyes flashing, a burst of light erupting from his palm. It lifts Jack off his feet, slamming him back against a pillar. He crumples to the floor, pain radiating the entire length of his body.

He thinks he can hear Daniel yell something, but then they are both lying on the ground, the guards having tackled them to the floor.

Above them, Skaara waves one hand with careless grace, ordering something Jack doesn't need translated to understand. All Jack can see is the hem of Skaara's gold robe as he disappears around a corner.

One of the guards belts something that sounds like 'brie', the sound of weapons arming echoing in the hall.

Jack squeezes his eyes shut, cursing himself for his moment of utter stupidity, but the expected shot never comes. He opens his eyes to find one of the alien soldiers leaning down over him. From Jack's position, the guy looks huge, with dark skin and a brilliant gold tattoo on his forehead.

The big guy's fingers pull out Jack's dog tags, his thumb rubbing across his name and serial number. Like maybe he's seen them before.

Jack tries to read something in the guard's expression, but he just drops the tags with a dismissive flick of his wrist, saying something to his underlings.

Jack and Daniel are dragged back to their feet, their hands roughly bound in front of them with metal manacles of a sort. "What he'd say?"

"He's asked them to remove us to a…chamber of some sort," Daniel says, still sounding out of breath.

Jack doesn't know if that hesitation is born of an uncertain translation or if Daniel is just hiding something. He doesn't get a chance to ask as they are shoved down the hall and into a large room.

There are weapons hanging from the walls, some staff weapons, others smaller scaled wooden replicas. Now Jack gets it. They are going to be interrogated before they are killed. A long table runs the length of the room on one side and Daniel and Jack are shoved down into chairs in front of it. The Big Guy is standing over their confiscated weapons and equipment laid out on the table. He pokes at the radios, the guns.

"How did you come to be on this planet?" he asks in perfect, clear English.

Daniel's mouth pops open, and Jack jumps in before he can get a word in. "We took a 747 out of O'Hare. You?"

The guy doesn't miss a beat. "Why are you here?"

"Vacation," Jack shoots back, leaning back in his chair as if completely relaxed. "We hear the weather around here is real nice this time of year."

Their interrogator seems neither surprised nor particularly annoyed by Jack's nonsensical answers. The guy takes laconic to a whole other level. He stares hard at Jack for a long moment before his lips twitch just the slightest bit as if to tell Jack he is completely transparent.

Big Guy picks up a M16. "These weapons. I have not seen their like before."

"I'd be happy to demonstrate how they work," Jack offers. "Just release my hands."

His lips curve in something that in no way resembles a smile. "That will not be necessary."

Walking across the room, Big Guy lifts Jack's tags once more, his thumb rubbing across the raised words. "You came to this planet to take back the ones like you," he surmises. He pulls on the tags, the chain digging in to the back of Jack's neck and forcing him to lean forward. "Did you not?"

Jack stares stubbornly back, his jaw tightening. He gets the strange feeling that Big Guy wants something from him, like he's looking for something specific in his reaction and Jack just can't hold in the question, even if it means showing his cards. "There was a woman. Like us."

There's a flash of recognition in the guard's face.

"Where is she?" Jack asks.

Big Guy abruptly releases the tags, Jack rocking back into his chair and almost losing his balance.

"Jaffa," he calls, barking something at his men.

They are dragged back up out of their chairs.

"Where is she?" Jack demands again, struggling against the hands on him.

The Big Guy doesn't look back at him, still staring down at the weapons on the table.

Daniel leans close to Jack as they are dragged out into the hall. "They're taking us to the holding cell."

Great, talk about back to square one. But it's still better than execution.

Jack keeps his eyes open for any opportunity to break free of their escort as they make their way down the now familiar route, but between being bound and severely outnumbered, Jack is pretty sure they can't count on being underestimated anymore.

The big one…something tells Jack he's different.

The Big Guy reappears by the time they reach the cell. He steps up to Jack to remove his restraints himself, which seems a bit below his pay grade. It's not until he shoves Jack roughly through the door that Jack realizes he's slipped something into his hand. Jack whips his head around to look at the guard through the bars closing between them. The guard holds his gaze a beat before his eyes slide away. Jack thinks he sees an apology in the gesture. Guilt.

Jack feels the hard edges of the dog tags against his palm, but absolutely refuses to believe what it might mean.

"Jack?" Daniel asks from next to him.

Taking a breath, Jack forces himself to open his hand, to look down at the metal plates resting on his palm.

Sergeant Jessica Hoyt.

The relief almost floors him, a sick swoop in his stomach only made worse by the knowledge that even if Sam is still okay somewhere, another woman, a fellow airman, is not.

"They're not hers," Jack breathes.

"Whose?" Daniel asks, looking down at his hand with interest. "Captain Carter's?"

Jack clears his throat, trying to drag it all back inside, looking up just in time to see Kawlasky moving towards them through the crowd.

"Welcome back, sir," he says.

"Told ya we'd be back," Jack forces himself to joke, looking away from Daniel's far too knowing gaze.

He slips the dog tags into his pocket.


	7. Falling Back to Earth: Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

Sam eyes the guards. The fact that they have remained to watch over the women since the bizarre choosing ritual took place doesn't bode well in Sam's book. Having killed any chance of getting back to the crystal hatch, their presence insures that Sam is left sitting with absolutely nothing to do other than measure the unease that is building in her spine. Despite her best efforts, the impossibility of her situation is finally beginning to sink in.

She's on an unknown alien planet, locked in a harem, facing technology and aliens that she has no weapons to fight. As much as it kills her to admit it, she's in way over her head. Worst of all, it's been hours since she's caught sight of the one guard here who's shown even the smallest crack in his impenetrable armor. Her mind has been working over their conversation again and again, analyzing the angle of his chin, the befuddled curiosity in his eyes as he'd stared down at her.

_This is safer._

That remains to be seen.

She doesn't regret her rash confessions to him, but she's beginning to wonder if she's conflating the event with wishful thinking.

With a sigh, Sam refocuses on the two women sitting next to her on the wide pillow. She can't just sit here anymore. "Do you speak English?" she asks, her voice pitched low enough for the guards not to hear.

One of the women turns towards her, something like curiosity in her gaze, but her companion just hisses, deliberately turning her back on Sam.

"English?" Sam asks the woman still regarding her.

Her eyes dart to her disapproving companion, but then there is a flash of something Sam easily recognizes: defiance. Her voice shakes slightly as she speaks, her hands earnest as they punctuate her words. It almost sounds like Italian, but with a strange cadence to the syllables. Sam doubts her pathetic high school French vocabulary is going to help the situation.

She smiles at the woman, shaking her head. "I'm sorry. I don't understand."

The woman returns her smile, touching her hand, saying something that Sam decides must mean, "Well, it was worth a try."

"Yes, it was," Sam says, her fingers squeezing the other woman's hand.

Pushing to her feet, Sam moves to a new group of women, sitting in the midst of them. She's going to talk to every woman in here if that's what it takes.

Two hours later, Sam has almost completed her circuit of the room, and though she swears she had seen glimmers of understanding in the eyes of some of the women, none of them had been brave enough to admit it. Sam tries to convince herself it was worth the small chance of learning something of where they are, why they are here, and what the future may hold for them, but she's pretty much back at square one.

She's up to plan G (rush the guards and damn the consequences), when the guard with the gold tattoo reappears. He considers her for a long while, staring across the room at her and she doesn't know what else to do but hold his gaze. She can feel the shift in the atmosphere in the room as he barks something to the other guards.

They descend into the space, pulling women to their feet and prodding them towards the door. Herding them like cattle.

The head guy moves across the room, taking Sam's arm himself. He holds her in place while the rest of the chamber is emptied.

She's not sure she should take being singled out as a positive thing, but maybe it can be.

"I'm Sam," she says. "My name. Sam." Somehow it is very important that he know she has a name—that she's a real person, not just a piece of flesh.

The guard's fingers tighten on her arm, but he doesn't respond.

"Do you have a name?" she asks.

"Silence," he commands, dragging her out of the chamber.

They are led down a long corridor and two wide sets of rough stone stairs that seem incongruous with the sophistication of other technology in this place. The more Sam sees, the more she gets the feeling these aliens are one giant contradiction. Brute force and sleek technology married uneasily together.

As they wind their way lower and lower in the structure, the air gets colder, the women drawing closer together, maybe for warmth or maybe just out of fear.

Finally they reach their destination—another cell, only this one much larger with sturdy metal bars. It lacks any of the elegance or softness of their previous prison. Inside the dim space is a crowd of men, faces grubby and wary, and Sam doesn't blame the other women for their reluctance to enter the space as the doors groan open.

The guards shove the women forward. A few of the women are greeted by men, the relief on both sides making it obvious that they are not strangers. The other women simply stay in a tight knot, retreating to the open spaces on the edges with wide eyes and pale faces.

Sam and her guard are the last to enter, his fingers still firm around her upper arm. She looks up at him to risk asking what exactly is going on, but he's looking for something out in the crowd. When his eyes finally settle, Sam follows his gaze to see that someone is pushing forward through the crowd.

He's hard to make out from the distance, from between the people pressing in on either side, but there's something familiar. She's chastising herself for wishful thinking when he finally steps free. Oh, God.

Jack.

He isn't looking at her, rather staring up at the guard, a moment of some form of silent communication passing between them. Sam is still trying to figure out just what is going on and battling the less helpful swirl of emotions rising in her chest at seeing Jack, when the guard gives her a sharp jab in her back, shoving her forward.

She stumbles down the short flight of stairs, basically careening into Jack. For a moment she feels his arms tighten around her, pulling her close with a heavy breath of something like relief before he steadies her on her feet and steps back. Looking up at him she's warring between being so glad to see him and wishing to God he was anywhere but here and not caught in this nightmare as well.

If she didn't know him quite so well, she might have been disconcerted by the way he's staring down at her with cold indifference. "You okay?" he asks, his voice rough, easily betraying everything he's not letting his expression show.

"I'm okay," she says, surprised to find her own voice a bit shaky as well.

His hand lifts to her face, stopping just short of making contact.

She grimaces, touching her cheek. "Just a little theological disagreement." She tries to smile up at him, to prove it's nothing. "Looks that bad, huh?" she jokes.

"Naw," he says, the slightest crack in his façade finally appearing. He clears his throat. "I'm really glad you're okay… Captain."

Despite herself, she flinches at the gentle reminder. She realizes she is still holding his arm and lets go, taking a step back.

There's a flicker of something on his face, and for a second she thinks he's going to say something else, but then two more figures appear out of the crowd.

She turns to greet them. "Major," she says with a nod. "Dr. Jackson. I'd say it was nice to see you…"

Dr. Jackson smiles. "Yeah. Not really the ideal spot for a reunion."

Sam dares to dart a glance at Jack, but he's back to looking detached and inscrutable.

"Captain," Kawalsky says, giving her a quick once over himself. He shoots her a wide grin. "Nice dress."

Sam rolls her eyes, recognizing the good-natured teasing for what it is, but Jack just growls something inaudible and shoves his jacket at her.

Sam isn't going to complain, wrapping it tightly around herself.

"Where were you, Captain?" Jack asks, his voice brisk.

Back to business then. She can do that. "Believe it or not, I'm fairly certain I was in a harem."

Dr. Jackson seems to find that fascinating, his mouth popping open, but she doesn't miss the dark look that passes between Jack and Kawalsky. She feels a beat of annoyance, but forces herself to ignore it.

"How did you guys end up here?" she asks, trying to push on to a new topic.

"Skaara and me got nabbed on Abydos like you," Kawalsky says. "Woke up here."

"Where is Skaara?" Sam asks, looking around for sign of the boy.

Kawalsky shakes his head. "He was taken. A bunch of gaudy, overdressed pageant contestants came in and picked people."

"Yeah," Sam says, remembering their sinuous grace and cold eyes. "The same thing happened where I was."

"He's one of them now," Jack says, his eyes trained on the guards outside the cell.

"What?" Sam asks, feeling a sick swoop in her stomach at the forced nonchalance in his voice.

"Jack's right," Dr. Jackson says, his own voice heavy. "Whatever they did to him, he's…he's not Skaara anymore."

Sam looks at Jack, wanting to reach out to touch him, to somehow acknowledge that she knows what this must be doing to him. He catches her eye and she forces herself to keep her expression neutral. "And what about you, sir? How did you and Dr. Jackson end up here?"

Jack lips twist into a wry smile. "Let's just say the rescue plan needs work."

"On the plus side," Kawalsky says, "we've got a radio, a block of C4, a Berreta, and a bunch of Marines holding the gate."

"Not bad," Sam says. It's certainly a hell of a lot more than she'd had an hour ago.

"Well," Dr. Jackson adds. "We also have less than two hours until General Hammond locks us out."

Wonderful.

Jack shifts his gaze from the guards, something flinty and incredibly reassuring in his expression as he regards each of them in turn. "All of which simply means it is time to make our exit. I want to hear options, not matter how out there."

They start brainstorming.

* * *

Jack leans against the back wall, his eyes sweeping the crowd of prisoners, mentally tallying who might be helpful in a fight and who would just be dead weight. Fostering a prison mutiny isn't high on his list, but at this point they need whatever advantage they can get.

Jack eyes the pair of guards in the hall outside, making sure they aren't paying too much attention to Kawalsky as he sets their precious C4 charge and carefully shuffles the prisoners out of the blast range. It's far from a subtle exit plan, and Jack doesn't relish the idea of turning the prison cell into a barrel of fish for the guards to shoot into, but they're running out of options—and time.

Assured that the guards aren't watching Kawalsky, Jack shifts his attention to Sam and Daniel. They are tucked into the front corner of the cell, just out of sight of the hallway. Sam had told them about the access panel she discovered in her previous cell, and it hadn't taken them long to find a similar one in here as well. She thought that with Daniel's help they might be able to figure out a way to open the doors.

Their heads are lowered together, Daniel's hands moving a mile a minute as he explains something, his excitement palpable even at this distance. In comparison, Sam's movements are measured and deliberate as she nods in encouragement to Daniel from time to time. Jack's always known she was smart as hell, but seeing her there up to her elbows in complex alien technology really drives home just how much she was made for this. Like most young officers, she's got some rough edges, but he has no doubt more experience in the field will fix that. He thinks she could be great.

He tells himself this feeling rising in his chest is just pride, but that doesn't explain the smile worming its way onto his face. _You're in a goddamn prison on an alien world, O'Neill_, he ruthlessly reminds himself. _Get a hold of yourself._

"Colonel?"

Jack tears his eyes away from Sam to find that Kawalsky has reappeared by his side.

"All set?" Jack asks.

Kawalsky is giving him a strange look, but nods, flashing the set detonator in his hand. "Yes, sir," he says. "If the wonder twins don't come up with something, we're all set to blow our way out."

"Wonder twins?" Jack repeats, his brow furrowing.

Kawalsky grins, jutting his chin towards Sam and Daniel. "Like two geek peas in a little geek pod."

Jack tries not to be annoyed, especially since it hasn't been that long since he described Sam that way to Daniel himself. Still, it rankles a bit, and he really doesn't want to think about why.

Jack glances at his watch. "Okay, I'm going to go check on them. You make sure the blast area stays clear."

"Yes, sir."

Jack wanders in as casual and circuitous path as he can, making sure the guards are looking as bored and uninterested in the prisoners as usual. Stepping up next to Sam and Daniel, he leans back against the wall.

"How's it going?"

Daniel doesn't even look up, just starts talking, even as his pencil is still sketching things out in his journal. "It's fascinating, really. On the surface everything here seems practically medieval and then there's this sophisticated technology right underneath. Even the language. I mean, on the surface it's a very close cousin of Abydonian, but it's very technical, practically incomprehensible without a point of reference."

Jack rubs at his temple, remembering just a little too late that one should never ask open-ended questions of Daniel. Sam looks up at him like she knows exactly what he's thinking, humor sparkling in her eyes. He deliberately rolls his eyes, and she smiles at him, letting him know he is completely transparent.

"Let me rephrase that," Jack says when Daniel breaks off long enough to breathe. "Report please, Captain. Briefly."

"Yes, sir," Sam says, her expression sobering, but none of the humor in her eyes fading. "We've made some progress, but still haven't figured out how to open the doors." She shoots the panel a hard look, her brow furrowing. "At the moment I think the most I could do is possibly short out the systems, which _might_ lock the doors shut. But with more time…"

"Definitely," Daniel says, backing her up. "I was thinking maybe-." He points at something in the hatch, Sam's attention pulled back. They start shooting theories back and forth that frankly make Jack's head hurt. He's pretty sure they've already both forgotten he's standing here.

"Wonder twins," Jack mutters, shaking his head.

Daniel and Sam share a look.

"What?" Daniel asks.

Jack ignores him, turning his attention to Sam. "Can you figure it out in the next ten minutes?"

He sees the familiar flash of stubbornness in her eyes, but it's quickly subsumed. "No, sir," she admits, sounding a little bitter.

He nods. "Okay. Plan B it is then."

Daniel begins to protest, but Sam puts a hand on his arm. "Yes, sir," she says.

Recognizing that he's outnumbered, Daniel sighs. "Fine."

They start gathering up their notes and tools, carefully replacing the crystals.

On the other side of the wall is the sound of approaching footsteps. "Let's go," Jack urges them, not wanting to get caught out.

Daniel puts up a hand, listening intently to the conversation filtering into the cell. His eyes widen. "Uh," he says. "Not good."

"What did he say?" Sam asks.

Daniel looks up at Jack. "He said Apophis has asked them to…clean up the mess."

Yeah, not good is right. "Okay, campers," Jack says. "Back in the crowd. Now."

Daniel obediently scrambles back towards Kawalsky, but Sam pauses another moment, dropping back by the panel. He moves to drag her away if he needs to, but all she does is swipe one of the crystal things, hefting its weight in her hand.

She looks up at him and shrugs. "Better than nothing, right?"

He's not sure what help it might be, but he appreciates the attitude nonetheless. "Come on," he says, taking her arm.

The doors have opened by the time they reach Kawalsky's side, no less than half a dozen guards stepping into the cell in a straight line, weapons held up in front of them. Jack doesn't need a translation for that. Neither do the other prisoners, because they begin to panic, shoving back towards the rear, jostling Jack and the others as they pass.

In the chaos, Jack glances at Kawalsky, who has their one and only weapon pulled. One berretta against half a dozen well armed aliens? Not the best plan. Daniel looks a little lost as people shove past him, but next to him, Sam is staring across the room at something.

Above the crowd, Jack can just make out Big Guy standing on the platform. His expression is blank, carefully indifferent as he looks out over the crowd, at least until his eyes settle. Jack can tell the exact moment Big Guy finds Sam in the crowd.

There it is, the tiniest flicker and Jack knows he's found their only chance of getting out of this alive.

Jack looks back over at Sam and she meets his gaze, the same understanding visible on her face. She nods.

Now or never.

"Kawalsky," Jack says. "I give the signal, you set off the C4."

"Sir!"

Jack ignores him, pushing forward to the front of the pack, feeling Sam right on his heels. They burst out into the open space in front of the guards where Big Guy paces calmly in front of them, his arm raised to give the command.

"Wait," Jack says.

Big Guy turns to him, lifting his weapon, his lip curling. Jack knows the guard only wants them to see imperiousness, but Jack can see it now, the unwillingness, his disgust at the slaughter ahead of him.

"You dare-," he blusters.

"Yes," Sam says, cutting across him. "We dare."

Big Guy swings his weapon towards her, but he's looking at her again like she's the strangest thing he's ever seen, his eyes lingering on the crystal clutched in her fingers like a weapon.

"We can save these people," Jack says, cautiously taking a half step in front of Sam.

Big Guy turns his regard to Jack. "Many have said that," he says, his voice hard. His weapon snaps open, arming itself.

Shit. Jack lifts his arm to signal Kawalsky to blow the C4 when Big Guy does pretty much the last thing Jack expects—he turns his weapon on the guard next to him, hitting him square in the chest with the blast.

"You are the first I believe," he shouts, tossing his weapon to Jack.

Jack moves on instinct, snatching the weapon and turning it on the other guards.

Ahead of him, the turncoat guard has already disabled two others, leaving four more who have opened up on the crowd. Jack takes them all out as fast as he can, ignoring the sound of people in the crowd screaming and panicking, the far too close passage of a stray shot from one of the guards. There's the sharp concussion of Kawalsky's weapon thrown in too and it's all complete chaos, but Jack has his targets in sight, and tunes everything else out.

Finally, the last guard falls, his red eyes fading. Jack still has his weapon raised, making sure the fallen guards are actually out of commission. Their savior is staring past Jack though, something inscrutable on his face.

Jack turns to locate his people, internally deciding the best avenue for escape when he sees her.

Sam is lying on the ground a few feet away, her hands clutched to her stomach.

There's a moment of complete immobility where Jack just stares at her, his stuttering brain trying to figure out what she's doing down there, and then everything slams together and he gets it.

He stumbles to her side, his weapon falling forgotten from his fingers. "Sam?" he asks, reaching for her hands, needing to see just how bad it is. That's when he notices the thick red pool spreading out under her back.

God, there's so much blood. Way too much blood.

"Jack?" she asks, her voice shaky as she looks up at him.

He pulls her up into his lap, grabbing the jacket someone passes to him, pressing it tight up against the wound in her back, trying to staunch that relentless spread of blood. "It's okay, Sam. We're going to get you home. It's okay."

"Jack," she says again, barely a whisper, and he leans into her, straining to hear her words. Her fingers, sticky with her blood, reach up and touch his cheek. "Worth…it."

He closes his eyes briefly, leaning his forehead against hers. "Sam, don't you dare. You hold on, hear me?"

Her lips curve into a weak smile. She tries to say something else, but all energy seems to drain out of her, her weight sagging back against his arm.

"Sam," he demands, shaking her. Her head lolls sickly against his shoulder, a noise rising around them from somewhere—something feral and broken echoing painfully in his ears.

Kawalsky is the one to reach across and press his fingers to her neck, holding there for crawling seconds. He shakes his head. "I'm sorry, sir. She's-."

Jack jerks his head up, and whatever is in his expression stalls the damning word in Kawalsky's throat. The major stares back at Jack with wide, horrified eyes. "Colonel," he says.

Jack ignores him, looking back down at Sam, one hand cradling her cheek.

Kawalsky curses under his breath, pushing back to his feet. He yells something, people shuffling around, but Jack isn't paying any attention. There's an explosion of sound and rubble, the ground rumbling underneath them and Jack ducks reflexively over Sam, protecting her from flying debris.

Not that there's a point.

Oh, God. He feels doubled over by the pain, the burning in his gut threatening to tear him in half.

"Time to go," Kawalsky says, his hand hard on Jack's shoulder.

Jack shrugs him off. He can't leave her. Can't leave this place if it means accepting this.

Kawalsky's fingers dig into his shoulder. "I swear to God, Jack, I will drag your ass back to the gate if I have to."

He can try, Jack thinks.

"Wait, wait!" Daniel says, kneeling next to Jack. "What if? I mean…"

Jack glances up, seeing Daniel's hands flapping in agitation and excitement. "What if what?" he snaps.

Daniel stills, staring back at him with an intensity of understanding, the look of someone who knows what Jack is feeling right now. "Sarcophagus."

The word echoes around in Jack's head for what seems like forever before the memory rises up—Daniel cradling a far too still Sha're in his arms.

God, what if…?

"You," Jack says, jerking around to look at the guard who saved them. He's standing in the middle of the carnage, dropping his armor from his body like shedding his skin. "Is there a sarcophagus here?"

The guy still looks a little shell-shocked, but he glances at Sam's body, something coming into focus in his eyes. He nods. "I will show you the way."

"Sir," Kawalsky protests. "There's no time. The code is invalidated in less than an hour."

Jack scoops Sam up in his arms, trying his damnedest to ignore the sick bonelessness of her body. "Get these people out of here, Kawalsky. That's an order."

"Sir," he protests.

"Don't wait for me."

Daniel scoops up Jack's abandoned staff weapon, moving to stand by him.

"No way, Daniel," Jack says. "You go with Kawalsky."

"Jack-," Daniel says, that familiar stubborn look on his face.

Jack meets his gaze, knowing Daniel's one great weak spot. "Sha're is waiting for you, Daniel."

It's the one thing Daniel can't argue with.

"Jack," Kawalsky tries one last time, his hand on his sleeve and Jack knows that look his friend is leveling on him.

This is different than last time though. This isn't Jack looking for a way to die. This is Jack trying to find a way not to disappear into the dirt of this jail cell floor. "Go."

Maybe Kawalsky sees some of that in his face because he reluctantly nods. "I'll see you at the gate. Right?"

That's Kawalsky, optimistic until the bitter end. Jack gives him a tight smile, but refuses to make a promise he can't keep. All that matters now is Sam. Turning to the guard, he says, "Let's go."

They pause at the cell door, looking down the hall in both directions.

"What are our chances?" Jack asks.

The man considers him. "The gods have already departed with their chosen. Apophis will not yet know what I have done."

"Will that buy us time?" Jack asks.

His eyes dart to Sam. "Some. But perhaps not enough."

Something about the way the guy looks at her, a mix of confusion and awe, makes Jack's nerves inexplicably settle. This is going to work. It has to. "What's your name?"

"I am Teal'c."

"Well, thank you, Teal'c."

He nods, looking down at Sam. "She is…a formidable warrior."

"Yes," Jack says, his hands clenching. "Yes, she is."

"This way," Teal'c says.

Jack follows him out into the hall.

* * *

Jack flips back the cover on his watch. He and Teal'c have been standing over the softly humming sarcophagus for just over forty minutes now. The compound has been far from quiet, an alarm of sorts sounding right after they made it to Apophis's personal chambers, but they haven't seen sign of a single person since.

According to Teal'c, the alarm had been a call to arms to defend the gate. All of the soldiers would be there. Jack can only hope Makepeace is as good as his word and that Kawalsky isn't stupid enough to try to wait.

Teal'c, who has stood motionless for the half-hour, not a word between them, finally shifts. He looks at Jack. "We can wait no longer," he says, his head tilting towards the hall.

Jack strains his ears, trying to pick up on what might have set Teal'c off, but he doesn't hear anything other than the same eerie silence that's been here the whole time. Jack looks down at the sarcophagus. It doesn't feel like it's been long enough. Not with the damage Sam suffered. Teal'c himself had said it could take up to hours to fix a wound as bad as hers.

"We must," Teal'c repeats, seeing Jack's hesitation. He hits the red ruby thing with his palm, the doors grinding open.

Sam is still lying as she was, her skin pale and flimsy dress stained with blood. Reaching inside, Jack pushes back the fabric. The wound has knitted, but is still raw, stretching like a stain across her abdomen. She's not bleeding anymore though, and most importantly, when he presses his fingers to her throat, he feels the slow but steady beat of a pulse. He holds his hand over her lips. She's breathing.

Thank God.

"Okay," he says, scooping her out of the sarcophagus. "Now how do we get out of here?"

"I believe I know a more direct route than the one taken by your men," Teal'c says, leading the way out of the room.

Jack isn't going to argue with that.

The more direct route turns out to be a small bay mostly empty except for a few metal alien craft that look like mini pyramids.

Space ships. Jesus. How had this become his life?

Teal'c keys a code into a small panel and a door opens up. Jack cautiously follows him inside.

Under a bank of windows are two seats and a systems of controls that Jack wouldn't hazard a guess at how to work. Teal'c slips into a seat, his hands moving across the systems with obvious competence, so Jack grabs the other seat, keeping Sam held tightly against him and settles in for the ride.

The ship hums into life, lifting them straight up off the floor at fairly alarming speeds and exiting through the roof. Teal'c aims the ship in the direction of the gate. What had been a cautious forty-minute walk is eaten up in mere minutes.

"There," Jack says, pointing when he finally catches sight of the clearing. Kawalsky and the marines are currently holding the Stargate, the wormhole already engaged, the stream of refugees disappearing into it. There is also a serious line of alien soldiers approaching over the rise. Jack knows they won't be able to hold the Stargate for long.

Teal'c buzzes across the top of the gate, and Jack sees his men hit the deck. Luckily Teal'c is as good behind the wheel of a ship as he is with a staff, because one of the marines takes a shot at them with a frickin' SMAW as they pass. Jack nearly falls out of his seat when the craft rolls out of the way, too busy keeping Sam secure to even bother cursing.

The ship rights itself again and Jack can see that they are not the only ones up here in the air. A matching ship is on approach from the north, eating away at the marines' cover.

Jack points. "Is there any way you can—"

Teal'c has the shot off before Jack can finish, the other ship swerving back down towards the forest with a tail of thick smoke behind it.

"Nice," Jack says, nodding at Teal'c. He skims the skies for more ships, but the marines seem to have taken care of the rest. Looking speculatively around the ship, Jack thinks it's a real shame this thing is too big to fit through the gate. He wouldn't mind bringing a few of these back home with them.

Teal'c locates a spot relatively clear of the fighting and sets the ship down.

Jack scrambles to his feet, his mind focusing down on getting Sam the hell through the gate as fast as he can. At the door, Teal'c pauses, bowing his head to Jack. "I wish your people luck."

Jack stares back at him in incomprehension. "Oh, no," he says. "You are so coming home with us. At the very least, she'll want to thank you. And I'd really like to buy you a beer."

His brow crinkles in confusion, but he follows Jack out of the ship. "I will lay cover fire for our escape."

Makepeace and Kawalsky are doing a credible job of holding the gate open, the other prisoners streaming into the wormhole. Bodies of alien soldiers litter the platform.

It's going to be a hard run, flat out across an open stretch. Kawalsky sees them coming though, shouting something to Makepeace. The hillside opposite explodes. God love claymores, Jack thinks.

"Go!" he shouts, breaking out towards the gate, dodging rocks and bodies and the occasional stray shot. His arms feel like they are about to fall out of their sockets but he pushes through the pain, breathing hard and concentrating everything on keeping his feet.

They've just _finally_ hit the edge of the platform when next to him Teal'c swings his weapon towards Kawalsky. With Sam in his arms, Jack can't do anything to stop him.

"Hey!" Jack shouts, and Kawalsky turns just in time for Teal'c to fire, the blast impacting something that seems to be flying through the air just next to Kawalsky.

Kawalsky scrambles back, his hands batting down the front of his uniform as if looking for other creepy flying things on his person. "What the hell was that?"

"A Goa'uld," Teal'c intones, his weapon snapping shut. "The larval form of the gods."

They stare down at the charred snake-like creature in horror before a stray shot from the approaching Jaffa impacts the platform near their feet. Jack beelines for the wormhole. "Explain later. Flee now!"

They clatter down the ramp on the other side, Jack shouting for the iris to be closed. It slides shut, the wormhole dying a few beats later.

The entire room is in chaos, medics and MPs wandering through the crowd of panicked prisoners, Kawalsky holding out his hand for Teal'c's weapon. Daniel stands at the end of the ramp, Sha're tucked up against his side as they mime and smile reassurances to the aliens.

Jack's legs wobble alarmingly, the fading adrenaline leaving his body aching and weakening. Before he can fall, he lowers himself down onto the ramp, leaning back against the railing. Sam is still securely held against him, her breath soft against his neck. He takes a moment to acknowledge how stupid ass lucky they are to be back on Earth.

"Medic!" he calls, his arms tightening around her.

He can't go through something like this again.

He can't.


	8. Falling Back to Earth: Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

Jack sits outside the door to the infirmary. This is as far as he's been able to make it after handing Sam off to the doctors. There are probably fifty other things he should be doing, but he's still rooted to the spot. Kawalsky and the marines have long since disappeared, Daniel off with Sha're to help with the refugees, leaving Jack alone in the hall.

The general went inside a while ago, no doubt to get an update on Sam's condition. When he reappears, he doesn't look particularly surprised to find Jack still out in the hall. He takes a moment to study Jack, and for the first time, his gaze isn't filled with disapproval.

"Good job, Colonel," he says. "You got your team back."

Jack wants to laugh at that, or maybe just chuck his chair into a wall, but both of those sound like they require a lot of energy he doesn't have, so he just shakes his head.

Hammond gives him a patient look, like he's chalking up Jack's behavior to being overly self-critical. If only he knew.

"Sir," Jack says, staring down at the floor. "You should know that the only reason we are all back is because I got lucky. Blind, stupid lucky. And because Kawalsky can keep his head in insane situations."

"I'm not sure I understand you," Hammond says.

Jack looks up at him. "You want the whole ugly truth, sir?"

Hammond looks like he might regret it later, but nods nonetheless. "Yes, let's try the truth for once."

Jack lets the dig slide, running his hands through his hair. "You can order us, and I can even follow that order to the damn letter, but none of that erases the fact that my judgment was shot to hell out there. Just the tiniest difference, and I would have gotten us all killed."

Hammond doesn't try to pretend he doesn't know exactly what Jack is talking about, simply regards him for a long moment, but with none of the anger from before, or the disappointment. Instead he's projecting a weary sort of acceptance, like he's finally realizing what he's in for as commander of the SGC.

"I may have…misjudged the severity of the issue," he admits.

Jack laughs hoarsely. That's one way to put it.

Hammond's got a wry smile on his face, so maybe the guy has a sense of humor after all. And possibly Hammond's disapproval and rage had really been a product of the fact that he's in over his head here just as much as the rest of them.

"I can't be her CO," Jack admits bluntly, laying all his cards on the table.

"No," Hammond says. "I think that much is clear, son."

Jack nods, leaning back in his chair. At least they agree on that.

"Why don't you go inside?" Hammond asks.

Jack gives him a tight smile. He's barely holding everything together as it is. Going in there, seeing her all pale and still…he can't promise not to completely lose it. "Probably not a good idea, sir."

Hammond smiles. "I think that could easily be this place's motto." He jerks his head towards the infirmary. "Go ahead. Someone familiar should be there when she wakes up." He eyes Jack's crumpled and stained uniform. "Though you may want to get cleaned up first."

Jack stares down at the cloth that is more red than green now.

"Do I need to make it an order?" Hammond says when he doesn't move.

"No, sir," Jack says, wearily pushing to his feet.

He's already got more than enough orders he can't live with. He doesn't need any more.

* * *

Everything hurts.

Sam tries to writhe away from the source of the pain, but God, it feels like her entire body is on fire and she just can't get away from it. Something is holding her down, and as hard as she tries she can't get free.

It takes an incredible amount of will, but Sam somehow manages to crack open her eyes. She's in a white room, the light way too bright. She wants to yell at someone to turn off the lights, to make the pain _stop_, but all that comes out is a weak moan.

There's someone there, figures moving out of the corner of her eye. A voice is shouting something that she can't make out. A woman leans over Sam and she tries to shift away from the stranger, but moving only brings more pain, tears pricking her eyes.

She thinks she hears her name, her eyes lifting past the woman and there is Jack, just past the woman's shoulder. His eyes are latched onto Sam but his mouth is moving and she knows somehow that he is pissed as hell.

The woman Sam is finally realizing is a nurse is scrambling for something on a tray, grabbing for an IV line and squeezing the plunger home. Almost immediately Sam feels a vague sort of soft cotton spread down her limbs. Blessed relief.

She breathes out, her eyes fluttering shut.

The next time she wakes, the pain is softer. Still present, but muffled. Bearable.

She opens her eyes. Jack is still there, sitting just a few feet away from the edge of her bed. He pushes to his feet when he notices she's awake.

"Doc," he calls out.

A short woman with dark hair appears, different from the one earlier. "Captain Carter," she says with a warm smile. "Welcome back. How is the pain?"

"Better," Sam says, rasping the word out through the dryness in her throat.

The doctor holds out a cup with a straw for her, and Sam doesn't even bother to protest being treated like an infant, especially since she's not sure she could lift her arms to save her life at the moment. She takes a small sip and the doctor pulls it away before she can drink too much.

"I'm just going to do a quick examination, okay, Captain?"

Sam nods, relaxing her head back against the bed as the doctor moves around her, poking and prodding with the occasional, "Sorry about that," when she hits a tender spot. Sam thinks she must be made up entirely of tender spots.

Jack is still standing motionless behind the doctor, watching Sam like he's scared she's going to disappear in a puff of smoke if he looks away. She instinctively wants to reassure him, but everything in her head is so muzzy that she wouldn't even know where to start.

Eventually the doctor is appeased, picking up a chart and jotting down some notes. "Everything looks good, Captain. You were lucky."

Was she?

The doctor disappears back into her office and Jack lowers himself into the chair by her bed.

Looking around, Sam tries to get her bearings. "SGC?" she asks.

"Yeah," Jack says. "Everybody made it back."

She nods. That's good. She's trying her damndest to remember coming back to Earth, but she's just got nothing after the prison cell. "What about Skaara?"

Jack's jaw tightens. "No."

Damn. He'd been taken, she remembers. But after that… What happened after that?

"I don't-," she starts to say only to stumble to a stop as the memory finally slams into place. She remembers the blast, the fire burning in her side… She's sure she was dead. She remembers saying goodbye. Jack leaning over her…

Her forehead creases. "Was I…?"

Jack grimaces, giving himself away. "Just for a little while."

"What?" she asks, her heart jumping in her chest.

Jack is toying with the edge of her sheet, folding it over and smoothing it just so. She recognizes this ploy, his complete absorption in a meaningless task to cover the fact that he is way more freaked out than he is letting on.

He's not the only one.

"Your buddy Teal'c showed me where there was a sarcophagus," he says after a moment, like it's no big deal. His lips twist into a smile. "Nice work, by the way. Making friends in clutch situations."

"Teal'c?" she repeats, the word making no more sense than any other part of this conversation.

Jack nods. "Big guy, gold tattoo in his forehead."

"Right," Sam says, the memory slipping into place. "The guard. I still can't believe he did that, saving us."

"You must have made some impression."

Sam thinks Jack must have made some impression himself, but doesn't feel up to arguing it. She closes her eyes, carefully rubbing at them with the one hand that doesn't feel like it's on fire. The terror of knowing she had actually _died_ is still ebbing slowly.

"I'm sorry," Jack says, something rough and painful in his voice.

Sam looks up at him and she knows that expression, one far too much like the man he'd once been and not the man he's become. Haunted. It doesn't matter anymore that she shouldn't know that. She does.

"Why?"

"I could have gotten you killed." He blinks, reconsidering his words. "What am I talking about, I _did_ get you killed."

She shakes her head, not understanding this guilt he's radiating. "I got shot," she reminds him. "How is that your fault?"

He levels a hard gaze on her. "You shouldn't have even been in the temple and you know it."

It actually takes her a moment to figure out what he means. Not Chulak, but Abydos. Apophis's attack. They both know why he left her behind when he went to see Daniel's discovery. But that can't be what this is about.

"Hey," she says. "I'm an airman. I signed up for this just like everyone else. I don't need to be protected or coddled. You know that."

He shakes his head, his lips twisting like she's missing something painfully obvious. "Not to me," he says, and she wishes she could misunderstand that as a slight, hold fast to indignation. But all she feels is the impact of what he's admitting.

She bites the inside of her cheek and blinks back against the tears she refuses to let fall. His fingers still haven't stopped moving and it's shredding her last nerves. Damn it all the hell.

She slides her hand over his, stilling the movement, allowing herself one weak moment to enjoy the warmth of his fingers under hers. "I'm okay, Jack," she says, her voice soft.

They will be okay too. They have to be.

His jaw flexes, like he's biting down on everything he'd really like to say. His hand twists up around hers, his grip nearly painful. "At least one of us is," he tries to joke.

She tries to swallow against he pressure building up in her throat at the memory, because this time it isn't anything like a start, only an ending. They stare at each other for a moment, everything rising to the surface, and God, if possible it hurts even more than the hole in her side.

She thinks he see it, because he says, "I can quit," the words quiet and desperate, but she knows he doesn't believe them anymore than she does.

"No, you can't," she says, her voice hoarse. "Not with everything we know now. Not with Skaara still out there somewhere."

He doesn't deny it, just closes his eyes, one hand rubbing at his forehead.

"I know what he means to you," she says, giving whatever absolution she can.

He stares back at her and she hears it, even if he never commits the words.

_What about what you mean to me?_

She swallows hard, pulling the tattered remains of her composure back together. They've already pushed this boundary to the breaking point. She knows danger when she sees it.

Jack's the one to lean down, pressing a reckless kiss to the back of her hand before pushing back from the bed and disappearing out the door.

She can't wish him back, no matter how much she wants to.

* * *

Sam shifts in the bed to relieve the pins and needles erupting in her left foot. The small movement sets off a path of fire across her back and she hisses in pain.

"Everything okay, Captain?" one of the omnipresent nurses asks, sticking her head around the curtain divider.

Sam forces herself to smile. "Fine," she says, keeping her voice light.

The nurse gives her a pointed look, but doesn't press. "Let me know if you need anything."

Sam lets out a breath as the nurse disappears, pressing a hand to her side. She knows she should probably just let the nurse give her another dose of the painkiller, but she hates to ask for it. It makes her head feel fuzzy, not to mention tend to give her vivid, disturbing dreams. She's better off without them.

She tries not to consider that maybe she just likes the proof that she's still alive.

Jack probably would have been able to take one look at her and know what was going on, but luckily—yes, _lucky_, she convinces herself—he hasn't so much as set foot in the infirmary again since the day she woke up. He's not here to call her bluff.

"Captain Carter?" someone asks, a hand cautiously pulling back the curtain. Dr. Jackson appears. "Are you up for a little company?"

Sam smiles. "Of course, Doctor." Anything to keep her distracted.

"Yeah?" he asks, looking around for a chair. "I just thought I would come in and see how you're doing."

"I'm good," Sam says. It's a phrase she says so often these days that it's practically become a tic.

Dr. Jackson eyes drop to her heavily bandaged side and she wonder for a moment if he's seeing it again, that moment in Apophis's prison.

She clears her throat. "May I ask what you and your wife will do now?"

He leans back in his chair. "Find a way to help Skaara. Help Earth with this battle in any way we can."

She can't imagine what it must be like, to find yourself suddenly exiled from your planet. "Will you ever be able to return to Abydos?"

"They'll unbury the gate one year to the day we left. But Sha're will not return for good until her brother has been set free."

She can still hear Jack's voice, hoarse with pain. _He's one of them now._

"Do you think it will be possible?" she asks. "To free him?"

"We've talked to Teal'c. He doesn't seem to believe anything of the host survives when the body is taken over by the Goa'uld. But either way, we can't just leave him."

She nods, thinking of Jack, knowing he too won't rest until Skaara is free. One way or another. "We'll find him," Sam says.

Dr. Jackson smiles. "I hope so."

They fall into silence then, Dr. Jackson giving her a penetrating look that feels somewhat like being x-rayed. She refuses to squirm under the scrutiny.

"Oh," he says suddenly, as if suddenly remembering something. He pulls out a crystal from his pocket. "I grabbed this on the way out."

She takes it from him, turning it over in her fingers. She recognizes it as the on she'd try to wield as a pathetic weapon of sorts. Little good it had done her.

"I figure together we may just be able to figure it out."

Sam forces herself to focus on Dr. Jackson and his infectious eagerness. She smiles at him. "Despite…everything, I'm glad to have gotten the chance to meet you, Dr. Jackson."

"Daniel," he corrects.

"Daniel," she repeats, handing the crystal back to him.

He looks her over, something deliberate in the way he studies her, like she's some incomprehensible language he's still figuring out. "You gave us quite the scare," he says, something indefinable in his voice.

Unconsciously her hand moves back to her side, the thick bandage there. "I hear I have you to thank for your quick thinking."

"I've been there," he says, his eyes slipping out of focus. "I knew nothing would get Jack to leave you there."

Sam feels her stomach clench. "Dr. Jackson," she warns, really not liking where this conversation seems to be heading.

"Daniel," he absently corrects again. With alarm, she realizes that he's clearly aware of her discomfort but not particularly bothered by it. "He tried to hide it, you know. But when you…" He shrugs. "It was pretty obvious."

It takes everything Sam has to keep her face neutral, like hearing him talk about how hard Jack took her death isn't affecting her.

She's beginning to realize Dr. Jackson may have the annoying habit of seeing things no one wants him too, and even worse, has no problems verbalizing it. Was this why Jack always talked of him with exasperation reluctantly tinged with fondness? He must be a serious pain in the ass when you're trying to keep something to yourself. But maybe that was exactly what Jack needed on that first ill-fated trip.

Dr. Jackson still seems to be waiting for some sort of response from her, but Sam just presses her lips together. This is not something she is going to talk about, friend of Jack's or not.

He doesn't seem offended by her reticence, rather amused as a wry smile twists his lips. "You two are a lot alike," he observes.

She's just beginning to resign herself to teaching him a few things about the way things work on a military base when he pulls a worn leather journal out of his pocket.

"So," he says, flattening a page so she can see it. "I've been working on translating the text from the crystal hatch."

Sam lets out a breath. Now this is something she can deal with, she thinks, gladly focusing her mind down on the concrete problem in front of her, pain temporarily forgotten.

It's so much safer.


	9. Falling Back to Earth: Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

"Hey, Captain."

Sam looks up from the stack of papers spread in front of her to see Kawalsky entering the infirmary. She's just finally won the right to sit up in her bed and do some minor work for a few hours a day.

"Sir," she says, smiling at him.

"Is this a good time?" he asks, gesturing at the paper.

"Of course, sir," she says, putting down her pencil. "I'm just trying to wrap my mind around this Goa'uld technology."

"Yeah?" he asks, glancing at the schematics. "Any luck?"

Sam makes a face. "Not yet. But I've just started."

He gives her an appraising look that she isn't sure how to interpret. "Something tells me you'll figure it out."

There was a time she might have assumed he was razzing her, yet another military man with little belief in the value of science in the field, but something about facing alien fire together stifles those kinds of nagging thoughts. She likes to think they've come a long way towards understanding each other since that first disastrous briefing.

"I'll do my best, sir," she says.

He smiles, looking around for a chair. "Did you hear that the President has okayed the formation of nine SG teams to start exploring all those addresses Daniel brought back?"

In the face of what they've discovered, it seems the most logical move for the President to make, but given man's ability to stick his head in the sand, she's still relieved. "That's good news, sir."

He nods. "As a result, there's been a little shuffling of personnel the last few days."

Sam thinks 'shuffling of personnel' sounds ominous. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he confirms, his eyes darting away from her. He betrays himself, just the slightest bit, and she knows in that moment that Jack has already had her removed from his team. She has no doubt that Kawalsky knows why too, especially after what Dr. Jackson hinted earlier.

"Hammond asked me to put together my own team," Kawalsky continues.

Sam refocuses on him, giving him a warm smile. "Congratulations, sir."

Kawalsky shrugs, but she can tell he's pleased. She's happy for him, but not quite sure why this news necessitates a visit to her bedside.

"I find myself in need of someone who knows their way around a firefight and can explain complex things to me, preferably with fruit."

Sam blinks at him, trying to decide if she's hearing him right. Is he honestly asking her to join his team?

"So what do you say? You up for it, Captain?"

Despite herself, she can't help but be suspicious of his motives. On her first mission she'd been captured, killed, and caught out in what must look like an inappropriate relationship with her commanding officer. Not to mention her rather juvenile beginnings with Kawalsky and Ferretti.

She forces herself to remember that this is not going to be an easy fight, this battle with the Goa'uld. Kawalsky wouldn't risk asking her to join his team if he didn't trust her, if he didn't think she was up to it.

_You have nothing to prove. You wouldn't be on this mission if you hadn't earned it just like the rest of us._

"I know we didn't quite get off on the right foot," he says when she still hasn't answered.

For all their rocky start, he's a good man, and a competent officer she knows she can learn a lot from. She's also aware that he didn't have to ask her to join his team, could have just as easily ordered, and it says a lot about him that he did.

"It would be an honor, sir," she says.

He regards her for another moment before nodding. "Good,'" he says, pushing to his feet. "I'd better let you get some rest then, so we can get you back to 100% as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir," she says.

She watches him head for the door, but something's still bothering her. It's like a giant elephant in the room, and she doesn't want this relationship starting off anymore rocky than it already is.

"Sir?"

"Yeah?" he says, turning back to look at her.

"About Colonel O'Neill," she says carefully, feeling the need to explain, to justify what it must look like to him.

Kawalsky cuts across her. "Did you know that the Colonel and I have served together for ages? Since we were young and stupid and full of grand ideas."

"No, I didn't," she says, wondering why Jack never mentioned him. Had he really cut himself off so seamlessly from his former life?

Kawalsky's expression sobers. "You know about the first mission to Abydos."

She nods, knowing he doesn't mean the official version from reports.

"Why he got picked for it?"

"Yes," she says. She had front row seats, wandering across Jack's path at his lowest moment, right as she was suffering one of her own. If she actually believed in fate, she might have had to wonder at that coincidence.

Kawalsky nods. "He's different now. I mean, not 'skip to my lou, isn't it a wonderful life' type different. But…better in a way I wasn't sure he would ever be. And I think some of that has to be because of you."

She automatically shakes her head, thinking of Dr. Jackson, and Skaara, and everything that happened out there on Abydos that first trip. She wants to believe she had nothing to do with the change in Jack, but she still has his voice in her head, soft and confessional.

_And if you did?_

What they'd had was messy and tenuous and maybe even impossible in the long run, but she can't pretend they didn't make each other better people. That was the sticky glue keeping them together no matter how many times things worked to pull them apart.

Kawalsky clears his throat. "I guess what I'm trying to say is…that getting tangled up in all of this was just rotten stinking luck in my book."

Sam searches his face, finding nothing but sincerity there, and feels some of the tension leave her shoulders. There are a lot of people in the Air Force who would love to use this as just another reason women don't belong on the front lines, see it as evidence of their weakness, their propensity for eroding morale. She hates more than anything that this might be used to define her as an officer.

"I just wanted you to know that we're not-." She stops, clearing her throat and lifting her chin. "What I mean is, it won't be a problem, sir."

He gives her a sad little smile. "I never thought it would be, Captain."

* * *

Jack stands outside Hammond's office, not particularly looking forward to this meeting. His reports are all written now, every impaired judgment down in ink for anyone to see. That might explain why Hammond had sounded less than happy on the phone when he ordered Jack down to his office.

He hasn't done anything too stupidly criminal since he got back from Chulak after all. He likes to think he's improving. Unless, of course, one stupid moment of weakness in the infirmary a few days before counts against him. Is one kiss really going to get him tossed back in jail? Hell, at this point he doesn't really care. That alone should alarm him.

He hasn't gone back to see Sam and maybe that's cowardice or just his common sense finally kicking in. When she looks at him that way—sad, regretful—it makes him want to do crazy things. _Crazier_ things.

He grimaces, rapping his knuckles against the door. Might as well get this over with.

Hammond calls him in and Jack steps inside, closing the door behind him. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

Hammond is seated behind his desk with an alarming amount of paperwork spread around him. "Colonel O'Neill," he says, waving him closer. "Thanks for coming down."

It's a surprisingly genial greeting considering how he'd sounded on the phone. Maybe this means Jack isn't heading for a court martial after all. Or maybe the guy is just playing with him for fun.

"What can I do for you, sir?" Jack asks, watching the general for any tells.

"Well, Colonel, mostly I'd like you to rebuild your team."

Jack's eyebrows pop up. So not the brig then. Nice.

Hammond smiles. "There are just two members that must be considered mandatory."

"Sir," he complains, wanting to point out how well that worked last time.

Hammond raises a hand to stop him. "I've spoken with the President. He has agreed to keep the program running not only as an offensive to discover ways to protect our planet from this new threat, but also in the name of exploration and cultural discovery."

Jack grimaces. He feels sorry for whatever schmuck they stick with scientist babysitting duty. Give him a dozen snake guards any day.

Hammond smiles, almost as if he's heard Jack's thoughts. "Dr. Jackson and his wife have requested to be put on a team."

Oh, hell no.

"Seeing as how you have a good rapport with both of them already, I thought of you as an ideal choice as their commander."

Hammond is punishing him. It's the only explanation he can come up with. This must be the one thing he could think of worse than jail. "You know, sir, retirement is sounding nicer by the moment."

Hammond gives him a patient grin that says he isn't buying that for a moment any more than Sam had. There are far too many reasons for him to stay now and they both know it. Sam, Skaara, the fact that the gate gives him more direction in his life than he's had in years. Only now can he admit that his makeover into a handyman never would have lasted.

Jack admits defeat and drops into a chair. "Damn."

Hammond doesn't seem to mind the lapse in protocol or the profanity, and it's just not fair, finally finding a commander who might actually get him. Fate really is a perverse son of a bitch.

Hammond flips open a file on his desk. "You may also wish to know that I took your advice and gave Kawalsky a team of his own, along with a long overdue promotion."

Jack feels a beat of pride, knowing Kawalsky deserves his own command. And a Lieutenant Colonel to boot. "Can't he take Daniel?" Jack asks hopefully.

Hammond smiles. "He has already requested Major Ferretti and Captain Carter. And Teal'c has requested to join her."

Damn. He tries not to feel like the last one picked for kickball. Getting Kawalsky promoted and Sam off his team had been his choice, after all. "Do I at least get to pick the military contingent of my team?" Jack asks, plans already building in his mind despite himself.

He'll need two additional soldiers minimum, so they can outnumber their sure-to-cause-as-much-trouble-as-possible civilian contingent. At least one to do nothing but follow Daniel around and make sure he doesn't fall into open pits, and another to listen to Jack complain, and agree with him all the time. That _might_ make it livable.

Now if only Sha're could actually be intimidated.

He is so doomed.

"I'll have the personnel files of possible candidates sent to your office, Colonel."

Office? Oy. This keeps getting better and better. Jack pushes to his feet. "Thank you, sir."

He's almost at the door when Hammond speaks again.

"Oh, and Colonel O'Neill?" he says, voice suspiciously casual. "I thought you might want to know that I've been reconsidering my earlier order to you and Captain Carter."

Jack comes to a stop, turning back to look at Hammond. "You have, sir?"

Hammond nods, flipping a file open and reaching for a pen. "Would you inform Captain Carter that I have, in fact, remanded it?"

Jack thinks pinching himself might be a bit unprofessional, but he's still damn tempted. "Excuse me?"

Hammond doesn't look up from the file he is adding notes to, just waves one hand. "Different teams, no direct line of command. By definition professional and well within the bounds of propriety. _If_ anyone were ever to ask my opinion."

That sounds a little convenient, even to Jack's ears. The Air Force's position is pretty clear because nothing says careers and positions and teams won't shift in the future, that they won't land in this same awful place again some day. And down the road it could be much, much worse.

Impossible even.

"Sir," he says, regret clear in his voice.

Hammond finally looks up from the papers on his desk that seemed to so absorb his attention. He waves one hand around the room. "This isn't exactly the quiet last command before retirement that it was supposed to be. Now I'm standing at the frontline in a war against an enemy that, frankly, gives me nightmares."

Jack doesn't see the connection, but waits, knowing Hammond will get there eventually.

Hammond leans back in his chair. "Something tells me this place is going to require a hell of a lot of all of us just to keep our heads above water. We will honor the rules, stick to them with good faith. I won't break them, but we may have to see how far they bend every once and a while just to stay sane."

Like, say, not throwing Jack in the brig for doctoring his mission reports, and leaving the gate open just five extra minutes past deadline to give your rescue team time to get home. It's a fine line, and a rather dangerous precedent to be setting.

Hammond's brow creases. "To be clear, I'm not encouraging you. I'm not even saying it's a smart idea, because we both know it isn't."

"Then what exactly are you saying, sir?"

"I'm saying that it's none of my business unless you make it my business. The rest is up to you two. Are we clear?"

Jack gets the message. Hammond is stepping back out of their personal lives with obvious relief. It's up to them to decide if it's worth the risk. If discouragement is enough to keep their hard won distance as it stands.

Jack knows what he wants to do with this information, knows exactly where to find Sam. But he's still standing in the doorway because Hammond's right; the smart thing to do is something else entirely.

The only problem is that Jack has never been very smart.

But maybe it's well past time he started trying.

* * *

Sam is in the middle of getting trounced by Kawalsky in a surprisingly cutthroat round of gin rummy when Jack stomps into the infirmary. "Kawalsky," he barks.

Sam spills a few cards (and not at all because she is losing), but Kawalsky simply looks like he's been waiting for Jack to show up.

Jack comes to a stop at the foot of her bed, his arms crossed over his chest. "A guy turns his back for five minutes and you pinch his entire team? What's that about?"

There's a brief moment where Sam thinks Jack may actually be angry, but then she catches the twitch of Kawalsky's lips and she realizes this sarcastic rough and tumble is standard operating procedure between the two old friends.

Kawalsky shrugs, stretching his arms up behind his head and looking smug as hell. "Some guys are just slower than others."

Sam's eyes widen, looking back and forth between them. Jack scowls and steps forward threateningly, but rather than throwing a punch, simply thrusts his hand out. "I hear congratulations are in order."

Kawalsky gets to his feet, taking Jack's hand in a hearty handshake. "I guess they are."

Jack smiles, slapping him on the shoulder. He leans into Kawalsky conspiratorially. "Lt. Colonel Kawalsky, huh? Has a nice ring to it."

You'd have to be a fool not to see the pride in Jack's eyes.

"Thank you, sir," Kawalsky says, looking genuinely touched.

Jack steps away, shifting back to Jack the clown in the span of a moment. "Don't thank me, I told Hammond you were way too green. Apparently he doesn't listen."

Kawalsky rolls his eyes, clearly not believing that for a moment.

Jack shoves his hands in his pockets, surveying the room. "I can't help but notice that half your team is already in the infirmary. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come."

The natural response would be to point out that it was actually under Jack's command that they all landed in here, but Kawalsky is way too sharp to walk into what Sam can only assume is a sick sort of self-flagellation on Jack's part. If you can't talk about it, might as well make an asinine joke out of it.

Kawalsky gives Jack a knowing look. "I like to think we're just getting some of the kinks worked out early."

There's understanding laced into that careful statement, acknowledgment that Jack may have screwed up, but that it just makes him as human as everyone else. That his mistakes can be forgiven.

Jack shifts, finally looking over at Sam. She hasn't seen him since she first woke up four days earlier, but she doesn't blame him for that absence, not really. She has no doubt he's been getting regular updates about her condition either way.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," she echoes.

Kawalsky doesn't miss a beat. He bumps his fist on the foot of Sam's bed. "I'm going to go distract Ferretti for a while before the nurses gang up and lock him in a closet or something out of sheer annoyance."

Sam smiles, grateful for his tact. "Sounds good, sir."

Kawalsky darts a glance at Jack. "Give me a shout if this guy starts making you crazy."

"Starts?" Sam quips before she can stop herself.

Kawalsky just gives her a grin and retreats to the far side of the infirmary where Ferretti is still laid up after surgery to fix his arm.

Jack looks a little lost now that Kawalsky is gone, shifting from foot to foot before finally claiming the chair next to her bed.

"So. How are you?" he asks carefully.

"Good," she says. "They may actually let me out of here tomorrow."

"Nice," Jack says. "I imagine you're getting a bit stir crazy at this point."

"You have no idea." She's fairly certain the first line of her mission report is going to read, 'Rule #1- do not get shot by a staff weapon.' But number two will be, 'Always have a laptop on hand.' Too much more downtime like this is going to push her over the edge, no matter how much her new CO tries to do his part to entertain her by kicking her ass at cards.

Jack picks up something from the table next to her bed, his attention on the task complete, and she takes the opportunity to observe him. Her eyes graze his familiar features, trying to gauge how well he's been dealing with everything, but it's the ache building inside her that catches her off guard, the nearly irresistible urge to reach out and touch him. It's been four days since she's seen him, and she's missed him, way more than she should allow.

He smoothly catches her eye, clearly aware of her scrutiny. She doesn't bother trying to pretend otherwise.

"You had me removed from your team," she says.

"Yes," Jack says, blunt and unconditional, and she knows he's not going to apologize for it.

He looks at her, expectant. She's pretty sure this is where she's supposed to argue that he didn't need to do that, that they shouldn't let the tangle of their personal lives impact their professional responsibilities. But clinging to that conviction with the stubbornness of an ostrich with its head shoved in the sand hadn't changed anything. Maybe it never would have.

She's been terribly naïve. About a lot of things. She'd been overly stubborn, thinking she could just flip a switch somewhere, that she could simply choose to not feel anything.

"I understand," she says, trying to ignore the burning in her stomach. He did the right thing, but all she can think now is that without the team they will have little to no reason to ever see each other. There's no part of him left that is allowed to be hers.

Jack shifts forward in his chair, leaning his elbows on his knees. "You did great out there, Sam," he says, and just once she wishes he couldn't read her quite so well. "You kept your head, saved Ferretti's ass, among other things." He touches her arm. "Kawalsky lucked out and he knows it."

She looks away, swallowing back against the strange swell of emotion rising at the praise. She hates that on top of everything, part of her mourns the professional relationship they could have had, how much she would have learned under his command.

"What about you?" she asks, trying to keep her voice casual, conversational.

"Me? Hammond has decided the best way to punish me for all eternity is to get civilian archeologist babysitting duty."

"Dr. Jackson?" she asks.

Jack nods, the look on his face somewhat like a man facing the gallows. "And his wife."

Sam smiles, thinking he's going to enjoy complaining about it almost as much as he enjoys doing it. "Lucky you," she says, patting the back of his hand.

She really doesn't mean for it to be anything more than a brief touch, a patronizing tease between friends, but his hand twists and hers ends up clasped in his like it belongs there. She's got a death grip on his fingers now, because she's got it in her head that maybe he's come here to say the final goodbye, that this is really it, nothing left between them but random meetings in a hallway and a few weak moments like this when one of them inevitably ends up in the infirmary.

"Maybe," Jack says carefully. Something's shifted in his expression, and he's regarding her closely, the kind of scrutiny that makes her chest feel tight. "I haven't quite figured out just how lucky I am yet."

Her forehead creases. "What do you mean?"

He looks like he's trying to make a decision about something, his thumb rubbing absently across the back of her hand.

"What is it?" she asks, tension building in her shoulders.

Jack stares down at their hands. "I had an interesting talk with Hammond yesterday."

Not a strange incident in and of itself. "And?"

"And…" Jack looks up at her, taking a breath. "He's decided that because of our new positions, his earlier order no longer applies."

Her eyes widen. He can't possibly mean… "His…earlier order?"

Jack nods. "Apparently he wants nothing to do with our personal lives. And unless issues of direct command crop up again…"

Before she can summon any coherent words in response to this startling revelation, Jack launches into a rapid and muddled list of all the reasons why resuming their relationship is a bad idea. He practically cites regulations by route and letter.

For about ten seconds she's taken in by his words, the excuses that on the surface seem to be him trying to talk her out of it—a guy scrambling away as best he can. Then she notices his grip on her hand that could be called desperate, and the look in his eye that tells her what this is really about is him preparing himself for her to walk away.

She stops listening then, her mind latching on the relevant details and ignoring the rest—discouraged, but not prohibited.

She's not stupid, she gets that this thing between them is a risk on many, many levels, and maybe not so long ago she never would have even considered it. Maybe she still shouldn't, but when it comes to Jack O'Neill, she left smart behind a hell of a long time ago.

Not prohibited.

Jack is still going full tilt. "We both know what people will say, and that you will take the brunt of that speculation. Your career…" He trails off, no doubt to let the hypotheticals grow large in their imaginations. "And God knows I'm no picnic to begin with."

She's sat patiently through his recital, but this last bit is just too much. "Are you finished?" she asks.

His eyebrow lifts at her brisk tone, and he takes a moment like he's mentally going through a list to make sure he hasn't missed anything. "Yeah, I guess so."

Planting one hand against the bandage on her side, she struggles up in the bed and makes a grab for his lapel, pulling him close. Her grip forces him to his feet until he's half-leaning over the bed, his face not far from her own.

"Good," she says. "Because I don't have a lot patience for stupid stuff today."

He blinks, looking down at her hand fisted in his shirt. "Am I the 'stupid stuff' in this scenario?" he asks, still looking confused.

"No," she says fondly. "Just the stuff that comes out of your mouth sometimes."

His lips twitch. "I think I should be offended."

She shrugs. "Go ahead. But don't think you can tell me what I'm willing to risk and what I'm not."

He swallows. "Are you saying…you are willing to risk it?"

She's pretty sure she made that abundantly clear the first day in Hammond's office. She touches his face. "I take it back. Maybe you are the stupid stuff in this scenario."

He touches her hair, his fingers carefully smoothing a lock behind her ear. "You should know, if we do this and things change again…if there's a next time, I won't be able to walk away again."

She's fairly certain that is supposed to be a warning, but the way he's looking at her, it feels much more like a promise. She bites her lower lip. "Then I'll just have to bake a file into a cake."

"You can bake?" he tries to joke.

"There are all sorts of things you don't know about me yet, Jack O'Neill," she promises. She has every intention of letting him take his time discovering all of them.

"Sam," he says, a question there as his hand cradles her face.

She wraps her hands around his wrist. "I'm all in. You?"

He spends another moment struggling against it before he says, "Oh, hell," and carefully gathers her into his arms. "I'm definitely in." His face lowers to her hair. "Just no more trips to sarcophagi, okay?"

She nods against his chest. "I'll do my best."

There aren't any promises. They both know that.

His voice is muffled slightly, his arms tightening around her. "I don't know what I would have done…"

She hates the terror in his voice, the fact that it's just going to be an unavoidable part of this messy, messy leap they are taking. But most surprising of all is the absolute certainty she feels that it's the right choice, terror or not.

That's when it finally hits her, what she probably should have seen before now.

"Jack?" she says, surprised to hear the waver in her voice.

"Yeah?" He tries to pull back to look at her, but she holds him firmly in place, her fingers gripping his shirt.

She turns her face into his neck, her voice lowering. "Now that I'm allowed to say it…I think you should probably know that I very well may be in love with you."

He stiffens for a moment with what she hopes is shock and not sheer terror, but then his body softens. He pulls back, and she makes herself look up at him. "Yeah," he says, nodding as his hands cradle her face, his thumb brushing across her cheek. "I know exactly what you mean."

She smiles. "Not really where I would have pegged this going, that first night."

"No, not really," he says with a huff of amusement. "But thank God it did."

They grin at each other like stupid idiots for a while, until there's a loud sound of annoyance from the other end of the infirmary.

"For God's sake, would you just kiss her already?" Kawalsky calls out.

Jack leans around Sam to glare at him, but she just pulls his face back down and does the honors herself. There'll be plenty of time to make Ferretti pay for the catcall he lets out as the kiss deepens.

Later.

* * *

Jack wanders into the infirmary, finding Sam standing near her bed, packing a small bag.

"I heard you were making a break for it today," he says. "Need an accomplice?"

She turns, smiling at him. To his eyes, she looks practically giddy to be getting out of here. "You volunteering?"

He holds up his keys. "I've got the getaway vehicle gassed and good to go." He eyes Dr. Fraiser as she walks up. "We just need to deal with your prison guards."

Dr. Fraiser rolls her eyes, but otherwise ignores him, instead holding up a bottle of pills. "Take these as needed for pain. There should be enough for at least a week."

Jack doesn't miss the look of distaste on Sam's face, or the way she's still holding herself a bit stiffly. He reaches out and takes the pills, slipping them into his pocket. "Thanks, doc."

Being stuck on base since the mission, Sam hasn't had a chance to look for a place, so she'll be staying with him until she gets back on her feet. He'll have plenty of opportunity to make sure her stubbornness doesn't get in the way of her recovery.

Sam seems to realize that too, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I don't want you driving, Captain. Not at least for a few more days. And no strenuous activity," Dr. Fraiser continues to lecture.

"I'll keep an eye on her, Doc," he promises.

"Great," Sam mutters. "I'm trading one prison guard for another."

An orderly walks in then pushing a wheelchair.

"No way," Sam protests.

"Oh yes," the doctor responds, both hands on her hips as she tries to stare Sam despite the disparity in their heights. "Wheelchair, at least to the checkout point."

Sam's face presses into a mulish look that frankly frightens Jack, but the doctor seems made of sterner stuff than he, because she just stares back, equally unmovable.

"Or maybe you can just stay for another night of observation," the doctor lobs out.

Despite the blatant threat, Jack still can't believe it when Sam drops the doctor's gaze. "Fine," she says with nothing close to grace, plopping down in the offending wheelchair.

"All good to go?" Jack glances at the doctor and upon receiving a nod, grabs the handles of the wheelchair and maneuvers Sam out. He swears the doctor lets out an audible sigh of relief as they go.

Luckily Sam seems to perk up a bit when they get out into the hall. "Freedom," he hears her mutter under her breath.

They get her checked out with relative ease. Once up top, Sam abandons the wheelchair with obvious joy. She's still not completely steady on her feet though, and he's relieved when she reaches for his arm rather than brazening it out on her own.

He takes her bag, slinging it over his shoulder. Sam doesn't protest, just leans against his arm, something so inherently trusting in the gesture that Jack can't help but remember a very different day they walked out into this same parking lot together. A time she was less willing to let him, or anyone, help her carry her burdens.

Had he really been any different?

It feels like a lifetime ago, and maybe it was.

He's been staring at her for a little too long because she squeezes his arm, sliding him an uncertain look that says maybe she's remembering too. "Jack?"

On a whim, he leans down, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

She stills, leaning into the unexpected gesture. "What was that for?" she asks, looking bemused and maybe a little pleased.

Jack just smiles at her, pulling on his sunglasses and guiding her out into the sun. "What's our destination?" he asks.

Sam's steps slow, her cheek brushing his shoulder as she turns her face up to the sun, a look of contentment stealing across her features. "Home," she says, her fingers squeezing his arm. "Just take me home, Jack."

He can do that.

.fin.


End file.
